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THE    PRESENT    SCHOOL    BUILDING 


660-1910 


COMMEMORATIVE  EXERCISES 


UPON  THE 


Two   Hundred  and   Fiftieth  Anniversary 


OF  THE 


HOPKINS  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL 


OF  NEW  HAVEN 


NEW  HAVEN 

The  Tullle,  Morehouse  &  Taylor  Company 
1910 


I— 


^ 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

The  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Hopkins 
Grammar  School  of  ]^ew  Haven  was  celebrated  on  June  17  and 
IS,  1910. 

The  exercises  of  the  first  day  were  opened  in  Lampson  Hall, 
on  the  Xew  College  Campus,  at  half  past  two  in  the  afternoon. 
(^  The  order  of  proceeding  was  as  follows  : 

"  Prayer  by  the  Reverend  Robert  C.  Denison. 

Songf,  '•God  Speed  the  Right,"  by  the  School. 

Salutatory  Address  by  William  Theodore  Ladd  of  ^Yoodbridge,  Connecti- 
cut, President  of  the  Senior  Class. 

Song,  ''We  Meet  Again  To-night,"  by  the  School  Glee  Club. 

Address  to  the  Graduating  Class,  by  Professor  Henry  Parks  Wright,  Ph.D., 
LL.D. 

Song,  "The  South,"  by  the  Glee  Club. 

Valedictory  Address,  by  Alfred  Howe  Terry  Bacon  of  New  Haven. 

Song,  "Onward,  Christian  Soldiers,"  by  the  School. 

Presentation  of  Diplomas,  by  Hon.  Simeon  E.  Baldwin,  LL.D.,  President  of 
the  Trustees. 

Announcement  of  Prizes,  by  the  Rector. 

Song,  "Star  Spangled  Banner,"  by  the  School. 

Benediction. 


At  five  o'clock  a  reception  and  laA\Ti  party  was  given  by  the 
Hector  and  Mrs.  Woodford  at  their  residence.  Oak  Hill,  which 
was  largely  attended. 

In  the  evening  the  annual  Senior  assembly  and  dance  took 
place  at  Hopkins  Hall. 

The  exercises  on  the  second  day  began  at  Lampson  Hall  at 
half  past  two,  and  consisted  of  prayer  by  the  Reverend  Dryden 
W.  Phelps,  Litt.I).,  D.D.  (H.  G.  S.  1872),  and  an  historical 
discourse  by  Hon.  Simeon  E.  Baldwin,  M.A.,  LL.D,  (H.  G.  S. 
1857). 

At  five  o'clock  there  was  a  reception  at  Hopkins  House. 
The  All!  11111  i  and  the  ladies  of  their  families  were  received  by 
Professor  and  Mrs.  Henry  W.  Faniam  (H.  G.  S.  1870),  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Frederick  M.  Adler  (H.  G.  S.  1888),  and  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Woodford. 


215207 


^  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

In  the  evening  the  Alumni  and  their  families  dined  together 
in  the  rotnnda  of  the  Yale  Dining  Hall.  Over  a  hundred  were 
present,  and  among  them  were  three,  Elias  M.  Gilbert 
(H.  G.  S.  1830),  Kev.  Dr.  Edward  O.  Flagg  (H.  G.  S.  18-tO), 
and  Rev.  Dr.  Timothy  Dwight  ( H.  G.  S.  1845),  who  were  in 
the  school  when  it  was  kept  in  the  old  sehoolhouse  on  Cro^vn 
street. 

Hon.  Simeon  E.  Baldwin  (II.  G.  S.  1857),  the  President  <>f 
the  Trustees  of  the  School,  jiresided  at  the  banquet,  and  brief 
addresses  were  made  bv  Rev.  James  3Iorris  AVhiton,  Ph.D.,  of 
XeAv  York  City,  Rector  of  the  School  from  1854  to  1804,  Rev. 
Edward  Octavus  Flagg,  of  Xew  York  City,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
(H.  G.  S.  1840),  ex-President  Timothy  Dwight,  of  Xew 
Haven,  D.I).,  LL.D.  (H.  G.  S.  1845),  Ziegler  Sargent,  of  Xew 
Haven  (H.  G.  S.  1900),  George  Douglas  Miller,  of  Albany 
(H.  G.  S.  18()5),  Arthur  P.  Woodford,  Ph.D.,  the  present 
Rector,  and  Walter  Camp,  of  Xew  Haven  (H.  G.  S.  1876), 
Secretary  and  Treasurer  of  the  Trustees.  Dr.  Elagg  also  read 
an  original  poem  in  memory  of  the  Rector  under  whom  he 
studied  when  at  the  School,  Hon.  Hawley  Olmstead,  LL.D. 

The  two  addresses  and  the  poem  follow  this  note. 

Copies  of  this  ])ublication  may  be  obtained  by  addressing  the 
Rector,  Dr.  Arthur  B.  Woodford,  Xew  Haven,  for  $1.00  per 
copy,  bound  in  full  cloth,  postage  prepaid. 


THE  EARLY  GRAMMAR  SCHOOLS  OF 
NEW  ENGLAND 

Address  to  the  graduating  class  ot  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  delivered  June 
17,  1910,  by  Henry  Parks  Wright,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Dunham  Professor  of  the  Latin 
Language  and  Literature  in  Yale  University  and  Dean  of  Yale  College,  Emeritus. 

I  tirst  heard  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  when  I  entered 
Yale  College  as  a  Freshman.  ]S'ine  members  of  my  Class  of 
one  hnndred  and  thii-ty-fonr,  or  one  in  fifteen,  had  received 
their  preparation  in  this  school.  I  had  felt  no  small  degree  of 
pride  at  having  my  name  in  the  catalogue  of  Phillips  Academy 
at  Andover,  which  was  fonnded  dnring  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  and  had  been  ]n-eparing  boys  for  college  for  eighty- 
six  years ;  but  at  my  first  recitation  in  A^ale,  I  met  a  classmate 
who  had  received  his  ]n-eparation  in  Hopkins,  a  school  that  was 
one  hnndred  and  eighteen  years  old  when  my  school  was 
fonnded. 

The  Hopkins  Grammar  School  was  widely  knowni,  and  had 
received  pupils  from  all  sections  of  the  country.  Of  my  nine 
Yale  classmates  who  were  Hopkins  men,  four  came  from  out- 
side Xew  England,  two  of  whom  were  from  the  South.  The 
Civil  War  had  not  closed  when  these  southern  students  entered 
college.  During  the  twenty  years  immediately  preceding  the 
Civil  War,  boys  had  come  to  Hopkins  from  every  southern  state 
except  Arkansas.  Of  these  nine  classmates,  two  went  into 
business,  one  becoming  the  head  of  a  large  manufactiiving  com- 
pany ;  four  became  lawyers  of  high  standing,  one  of  whom  is 
a  judge ;  two  studied  medicine,  of  whom  one  became  Professor 
in  the  Yale  Medical  School ;  one  studied  theology,  and  he  is 
now  the  Bishop  of  (NunuH'ticut. 

In  accordance  with  the  custom  of  England,  from  which  the 
early  settlers  of  ]\rassachusetts  and  C(mnecticut  came,  the  iiisti- 
lutioiis  in  these  colonies  at  which  boys  wow  ])rc])ar('d  tor 
college  were  at  first  called  scIidoIs.     These  New  Eiiglaiul  schools 


*  THE    HOPKIiVS    GKAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    Is^EW    HAVEX 

were  modeled  after  the  Grammar  Schools  of  England  with 
which  the  settlers  were  familiar.  After  the  beginning  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  when  a  feeling  of  hostility  existed  in  the 
colonies  toward  the  mother  countrj-,  and  ever;)'thing  English 
M-as  discarded,  the  name  school  was  no  longer  given  to  the 
newly  established  institutions  of  this  grade,  but  they  were  called 
academies;  during  the  next  one  hundred  years  more  than 
seventy  academies  were  incoi*porated  in  Massachusetts  alone, 
A\'ith  authority  to  hold  trust  funds  for  the  purpose  of  education.^ 
Some  of  these  existed  for  a  short  time  only,  and  some  have 
become  high  schools.  The  term  academy  had  been  used  in 
England  for  institutions  of  learning  founded  by  ISTon-conform- 
ists,  to  distinguish  them  from  the  schools  of  the  Church  of 
England.^  This  may  have  suggested  the  name  for  secondary 
schools  established  in  America  at  this  epoch  in  our  histoiy. 
The  use  of  the  name  in  this  country  for  a  preparatory  school 
continued  beyond  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  To 
the  early  part  of  this  period  belong  Phillips-Exeter  Academy 
in  l!^ew  Hampshire,  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  and  Leicester 
Academy  in  Massachusetts,  and  the  Episcopal  Academy  of 
Connecticut  at  Cheshire.^  The  Dummer  Academy  in  South 
Byfield,  Massachusetts,  is  sometimes  called  the  oldest  academy 
in  the  United  States;  it  was  founded  in  1Y63,  thirteen  years 
before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  it  was  called  the 
Dummer  School  for  the  first  twenty  years.* 

Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  with  the  return  of  our 
old  affection  for  the  mother  country  and  our  respect  for  its 
institutions,    especially   its    educational    institutions,    the   title 

^  Report  of  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education,  Vol.  XL.     Appendix,  pp. 

180-345. 

-  Tlie  same,  p.  191. 

^  Besides  the  Episcopal  Academy  at  Cheshire,  several  other  academies 
were  established  in  Connecticut  between  1780  and  1860.  The  one  at  Green- 
field Hill,  foiuided  and  maintained  by  the  first  President  Dwight.  attained 
high  reputation  throughout  the  country.  It  was  attended  by  persons  of 
both  sexes. 

^  The  school  at  Lebanon,  Conn.,  of  which  Nathan  Tisdale  was  master,  was 
established  in  1743.  Pupils  came  to  it  from  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas,  as 
well  as  from  the  northern  colonies. 


EAELY  GRAMMAR  SCHOOLS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND         5 

school  again  came  into  common  use,  and  it  has  become  exceed- 
ing popular.  ]Sr early  every  newly  established  institution  of  the 
second  grade  is  now  called  a  school.  There  are  approximately 
four  hundred  and  fifty  fitting  schools  in  the  United  States  that 
l^repare  boys  for  the  eastern  universities.  About  two  hundred 
and  sixty  of  these  are  high  schools ;  of  the  remaining  one 
hundred  and  ninety,  sixty  are  called  academies  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty  schools. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate  the  condition  of  Xew  Eng- 
land when  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  was  established. 
1660  was  very  near  the  beginning  of  j^ew  England  history. 
It  was  only  forty  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  at 
Plymouth,  and  Manhattan  Island  was  still  in  the  possession  of 
the  Dutch.  The  greater  part  of  the  territory  now  included  in 
the  Atlantic  States  was  then  occupied  by  Indians.  The  entire 
population  of  J^ew  England  hardly  reached  forty  thousand, 
and  was  of  the  purest  English  stock. 

One  of  the  earliest  names  in  the  Hopkins  Catalogue  is  that 
of  Abraham  Pierson,  first  President  of  Yale.  When  he  entered 
Haiward  College  in  1664-,  his  home  was  in  Branford,  Connecti- 
cut. How  do  you  suppose  he  traveled  back  and  forth  between 
Cambridge  and  his  father's  house  ?  There  was  not  only  no 
public  conveyance,  but  there  was  not  even  anything  that  could 
properly  be  called  a  road  between  'New  ^aven  and  Boston — 
nothing  better  than  a  foot  and  bridle  path,  which  went  through 
regions  occupied  by  Indians  and  infested  by  wild  beasts.  If 
he  dared  risk  the  journey,  he  might  set  out  for  Cambridge  on 
foot,  and  carry  a  pack.  We  know  that  Stephen  Holmes,  a  Yale 
student,  nearly  one  hundred  years  later  walked  from  beyond 
Wallingford,  and  probably  also  from  his  home  in  Woodstock, 
to  Isew  Haven,  with  a  pack,  since  he  was  fined  twenty  pence 
by  the  faculty  for  carrying  the  pack  on  Sunday.  If  Pierson  had 
much  baggage  and  wished  to  take  it  with  him,  he  might  go  from 
Xew  Haven  to  Boston  by  boat — when  a  boat  happened  to  be 
going  that  way,  which  would  not  be  often — or  he  could  cariw 
his  baggage  on  horseback.  This  was  a  common  way  of  ti-aiis- 
l^orting  merchandise  from   the  coast   and   river   to\ms   to   the 


b  THE    HOPKIIirS    GEAMMAPv    SCHOOL    OF    ISTEW    HAVEN 

interior  settlements  until  near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. How  often  do  you  think  he  received  a  letter  from  home 
while  a  student  at  HarA-ard  I  There  were  then  no  mail  facili- 
ties. The  first  general  post  between  ]^ew  York  and  Boston 
was  established  in  1672,  twelve  years  after  Hopkins  was 
founded,  and  went  on  horseback  once  a  month  each  way. 
There  was  as  yet  not  even  a  private  post  rider,  who  carried 
letters  and  distributed  newspapers.  There  was  no  need  of  a 
post  rider  for  newspapers,  as  there  were  no  newspapers  to  dis- 
tribute. The  first  copy  of  the  Boston  News  Letter,  the  earliest 
newspaper  published  in  this  country,  appeared  nearly  forty 
years  after  the  founding  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School. 
The  only  way  in  which  young  Pierson  could  send  a  letter  to  his 
father  was  by  courtesy  of  some  private  indi\'i(lual  who  might 
be  coming  from  Boston  to  ]*^ew  Haven. 

Hopkins  belongs  to  a  class  of  schools  established  earlv  in  the 
history  of  l^ew  England,  of  which  there  are  two  other  survivors : 
the  Boston  Latin  School  and  the  Roxbury  Latin  School,  both 
several  years  older  than  Hopkins.  The  leading  settlers  of 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  were  well-educated.  Several 
were  university  men  and  had  been  trained  in  the  English 
schools.  Grovenior  Hopkins  had  been  a  scholar  in  the  Grram- 
mar  School  of  Shrewsbury ;  Eaton  and  Daven]i<:)rt  had  been 
schoolmates  in  the  Grammar  School  at  Coventry. 

After  ]3rovision  had  been  made  by  the  early  settlers  of  iSTew 
England  for  public  worship,  attention  was  at  once  given  to  the 
education  of  the  young.  It  would  seem  from  a  court  record 
that  an  elementary  school  existed  in  ISTew  Haven  within  one  year 
after  its  first  settlement.'''  Harvard  College  was  founded  in 
1630,  and  within  the  next  decade  there  were  grammar  schools  in 
Boston,  Charleston,  Salem,  Dorchester,  Boxbury,  !N^ew  Haven, 
and  ilartford,  at  which  the  youth  of  these  to%\ms  could  be  pre- 
]iare(l  for  the  university. 

"  "And  the  said  Thomas  Fiigill  is  to  finde  him  what  is  convenient  for  him 
as  a  servant,  and  to  Iceepe  him  att  school  one  yeare,  or  else  to  advantage 
liini  as  nnich  in  his  education,  as  a  year's  learning  comes  to."  New  Haven 
Colony  Records,  February  25,  1639. 


EARLY  GKAMM.V^  SCHOOLS  OF  NEW  EXGLAXD         i 

Early  efforts  were  made  to  sustain  a  grammar  school  in  Xew 
IIa\-en.  Within  three  years  after  the  tirst  house  was  built,  the 
famous  Ezekiel  Cheever  began  in  this  citv  his  long  service  as 
a  grammar  school  master.  He  was  an  accomplished  scholar, 
and  could  write  finished  Latin  poems  and  Latin  dissertations. 
He  published  a  Latin  Accidence,  '"A  short  introduction  to  the 
Latin  Tongue,"  which  reached  its  twenty-fifth  edition  and  was 
the  Ix'ginners'  Latin  book  in  Xew  England  grammar  schools 
for  more  than  one  hundred  years.''  After  teaching  in  Xew 
Haven,  Ipswich,  and  Charleston,  he  became  the  Master  of  the 
Boston  Latin  School,  which  position  he  held  for  thirty-eight 
years.  As  a  teacher  of  youth,  he  had  no  equal  in  America 
before  1763,  when  Samuel  ]\[oody  became  Master  of  the  Dum- 
mer  School  at  B^^eld.  Cotton  M'ather,  one  of  his  pupils,  said 
in  his  funeral  sennon  that  "when  scholars  came  to  be  admitted 
into  the  college,  they  who  came  with  the  Cheeverian  education 
were  generally  the  most  unexceptionable."  He  was  a  severe 
disciplinarian,  even  for  those  times.  Rev.  Samuel  Maxwell, 
when  eighty-four  years  of  age,  told  President  Stiles  that  Mr. 
Cheever  "'used  to  wear  a  long  white  Beard  terminating  in  a 
point ;  that  when  he  stroked  his  beard  to  the  point  it  was  a  sign 
to  the  Boys  to  stand  clear."  '^  Rev.  John  Barnard,  who 
entered  Mr.  Cheever's  school  before  he  was  eight  years  old,  and 
who  was  often  beaten  by  him  for  his  "little  roguish  tricks," 
gives  the  following  instance,  which  shows  both  the  severity  and 
the  gentleness  of  this  great  teacher:  "I  remember  once  in  mak- 
ing a  piece  of  Latin  my  master  found  fault  with  the  s^mtax  of 
one  word,  which  was  not  so  used  by  me  heedlessly,  but 
designedly,  and  therefore  I  told  him  there  was  a  ])lain  granunar 
rule  for  it.  He  angrily  r('])lied,  'There  is  no  such  rule.'  I 
took  the  grammar  and  showed  the  rule  to  him.  Then  he 
smilingly  said:  'Thou  art  a  l)rave  boy.  I  had  forgot  it.'  And 
no  wonder,  for  he  was  then  above  eighty  years  old."  ^ 

'■■  Cheever's  Latin  Accidence  was  written  in  New  Haven.  The  last  edition 
was  printed  in  1838.     American  .Journal  of  Education.  Vol.  1,  p.  311. 

'  Dexter,  Diary  of  Ezra  .Stiles,  Vol.  1,  p.  228. 

*  Autobiography  of  Rev.  John  Barnard,  Collections  of  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society,  Vol.  V,  p.  180. 


O  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

Mr.  Cheever  was  one  of  the  founders  of  'New  Haven,  and 
rig'htlj  belonged  to  ISTew  Haven.  His  removal  to  Massachu- 
setts, after  twelve  years'  service  here,  was  an  irreparable  loss 
to  our  city.  If  he  had  not  become  involved  in  an  unfortunate 
aifair  with  the  First  Church,^  which  resulted  in  his  departure 
from  JSTew  Haven,  he  would  very  likely  have  been  the  first 
rector  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School.  Under  his  rectorship, 
the  school  would  have  started  with  a  reputation  for  scholarship 
and  discipline  that  it  could  not  get  under  George  Pardee,  who 
was  "willing  to  do  what  he  was  able,"  but  admitted  that  he  "had 
lost  much  of  what  learning  he  had  foniierly  attained." 

Mr.  Cheever  left  ISTew  Haven  in  1650,  the  year  after  his 
dismission  from  the  church,  and  sen'ed  as  master  of  grammar 
schools  in  Massachusetts  for  fifty-seven  years.  He  began  by 
teaching  the  children  of  the  first  settlers,  and  lived  to  teach  the 
descendants  of  the  first  settlers  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion. He  had  a  continuous  career  as  grammar  school  master 
extending  over  sixty-nine  years,  and  died  while  still  Master  of 
the  Boston  Latin  School,  at  the  age  of  ninety-three. 

A  study  of  existing  records  of  the  Roxbury,  Dorchester,  and 
Hopkins  Schools  will  give  us  some  idea  of  these  early  grammar 
schools.  They  were  established  by  gifts  or  by  small  voluntary 
contributions  of  private  individuals,  or  by  action  of  the  towns, 
and  were  open  to  the  sons  of  the  poor  and  unlearned  as  well  as 
to  those  of  the  better  classes.  In  them  all,  the  requirements  for 
admission,  the  course  of  study,  and  the  rules  and  regulations 
were  essentially  the  same.  For  admission,  little  was  demanded 
except  the  ability  to  read  and  spell.  Pupils  in  the  schools  who 
(lid  not  take  Latin  gave  their  attention  mainly  to  reading,  spell- 
ing, writing,  and  arithmetic,  or  cyphering,  as  it  was  then 
called.-^*'     But  the  main  purpose  of  these  grammar  schools  was 

°  Collections  of  Connecticut  Historical  Society,  Vol.  I,  pp.  22-51. 

^°  II.  That  noe  Boyes  be  admitted  into  ye  s<i  schoole  for  ye  learning  of 
English  books  but  such  as  have  been  before  taught  to  spell  letters  &  begin 
to  Read  thereby  to  perfect  theire  Right  Spelling  &  Reading,  or  to  learn  to 
write  &  Cypher  for  numeration  &  addition  noe  fiirther,  &  yt  all  others  that 
are  too  young  and  not  instituted  in  letters  &  spelling  &  all  Girles  be 
excluded  as  Improper  &  inconsistent  wth  such   a  Grammar  Schoole  as  ye 


EARLY    GRAMMAE    SCHOOLS    OF    XLW    EXGLAT^D  9 

to  select  the  brightest  boys  and  fit  them  for  college.  As  the 
only  college  before  1700  was  Hansard,  the  course  of  study  for 
boys  preparing  for  college  was  determined  by  the  Harvard 
requirements,  which  are  thus  given  in  the  ''La^vs  of  Harvard 
College''  issued  in  1655  : 

"When  any  Scholler  is  able  to  read  and  understand  Tully,  Virgill,  or  any 
such  ordinary  classicall  authors,  and  can  readily  make,  speake,  or  write 
true  latine  in  prose,  and  hath  skill  in  makeing  verse,  and  is  competently 
grounded  in  the  greek  language,  so  as  to  be  able  to  construe  and  gram- 
matically to  resolve  ordinary  greek,  as  the  greeke  testament,  Isocrates,  and 
the  Minor  Poets,  or  such  like,  haveing  withall  meet  testimony  of  his 
towardness,  he  shall  be  capable  of  his  admission  Into  Colledge." 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Com- 
mittee, June  28,  1660,  it  was  agreed  that  the  schoolmaster,  Mr. 
Pecke,  ''should  teach  the  schollers  Lattine,  Greek  and  Hebrew 
and  fitt  them  for  the  Colledge."  ^^  To  be  able  to  speak  good 
Latin  and  write  it  both  in  prose  and  verse,  to  be  competently 
grounded  in  the  Greek  language,  to  be  able  to  read  Cicero  or 
Vergil,  Isocrates,  or  the  minor  Greek  poets,  and  to  have  some 
knowledge  of  Hebrew,  was  no  light  requirement,  measured  even 
by  the  standards  of  the  present  day. 

The  boys  in  the  schools  were  from  eight  years  of  age  upward, 
and  of  all  grades.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  considerable 
number  in  any  year  were  preparing  for  the  University.  The 
rector  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  reported  to  the  town  in 
1668  that  there  were  eight  boys  in  Latin,  and  that  three  more 
were  expected  in  the  summer,  and  two  more  in  the  following 
winter.  In  the  Koxbury  Latin  School  in  1770,  that  is,  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  years  after  its  foundation,  there  were 
eighty-five  scholars,  divided  as  follows  and  evidently  arranged 
in  order  of  their  grade,  beginning  with  the  highest:  Latin 
scholars,  9;  cypherers,  20;  writers,  17;  Testament,  10; 
psalter,  10;    spellers,  19.     "Cyphering''  was  taught  without  a 

law  informes  &  is  ye  Designe  of  this  Settlemt.  And  yt  noe  Boyes  be 
admitted  from  other  townes  for  the  learning  of  English  w'hout  liberty 
and  specialty  license  from  y«  Committee."  (From  the  Rules  of  the  Hop- 
kins Grammar  School  1684.) 

"  New  Haven  Colony  Records,  Vol.  II,  p.  377. 


10  TJEE    HOPKIXS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    XEW    ITAVElSr 

text-book.  The  oSTew  England  Primer  was  used  as  a  spelling- 
book,  and  the  ordinary  reading-book  was  the  Bible. 

j^o  time  seems  to  have  been  set  apart  at  first  in  anv  of  the 
schools  for  regular  vacations.  John  Pruddon  was  hired  bv  the 
Roxbury  trustees  in  1668  ''to  keep  a  school e  for  ye  space  of  one 
full  yeare."  The  year  contained  fifty-two  weeks,  of  six  work- 
ing days  each.  A  laboring  man  hired  for  the  year  had  no 
vacation ;  the  minister  had  none.  That  the  schoolmaster  was 
not  to  be  made  an  exception  is  plain  from  the  very  explicit  state- 
ment regarding  the  length  of  the  school  year  in  the  Dorchester 
ndes : 

From  tlie  beginning  of  the  first  moneth  untill  the  end  of  the  7th,  he  shall 
evry  day  beginn  to  teach  at  seaven  of  the  Chick  in  the  morning,  and  dis- 
misse  his  scholers  at  fyve  in  tlie  aftcrnoone.  And  for  the  other  fy^'e 
months,  that  is,  from  the  beginning  of  the  8tli  moneth  untill  the  end  of  the 
]  2th  moneth,  he  shall  evry  day  beginn  at  8  of  the  Clock  in  the  morning 
and  end  at  4  in  the  afternoon. 

Evry  day  in  the  yeare,  the  u.suall  tyme  of  dismissing  at  noon  shall  be 
at  11,  to  beginn  agayne  at  one. 

Here  we  have  two  terms,  one  of  seven  full  months,  and  the 
other  of  five,  which  together  fill  out  the  entire  year.  As  each 
tenu  ended  at  four  or  five  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and  the 
following  term  began  at  seven  or  eight  on  the  next  Monday, 
there  would  be  no  chance  even  for  a  short  recess  between  the 
terms ;  and  the  early  colonists,  as  is  well  kno^^^l,  had  no  use  for 
holidays. 

It  seems,  however,  to  have  been  expected  that  the  school- 
master would  take  some  time  to  attend  to  his  personal  affairs, 
as,  for  example,  to  plant  his  com  or  to  cut  his  hay  or  grain,  or 
perhaps  to  go  a-fishing.  The  Dorchester  rule  was  that  ''he  shall 
diligently  attend  his  Schoole  without  unnecessarily  absenting 
himself  to  the  prejudice  of  his  schollers  and  hindering  their 
learning."  But  we  may  feel  perfectly  sure  that  in  those  heroic 
days  neither  the  Connnittee  nor  the  master  ever  thought  it 
necessary  to  omit  a  session  of  the  school  on  account  of  the  rain, 
or  the  cold,  or  the  deep  snow.  In  Xew  Haven,  in  October, 
1651,  an  arrangement  was  made,  by  special  vote  of  the  Com- 
mittee, with  one  schoolmaster,  John  Hanford,   that  he  should 


EARLY    GKA:\rMAi;    SCJIOOLS    OF    KEW    E^^GLAA^D  11 

"have  liberty  once  a  year  to  see  his  friends,"  ^-  from  which  we 
may  reasonably  infer  that,  withont  some  special  vote,  there  was 
no  such  liberty.  In  this  case,  the  master  was  allowed  to  make 
his  visit  to  his  friends  at  some  time  during  the  harvest  season. 

The  master  was  required  to  teach  six  days  in  the  week,  and 
the  school  day  was  long.  As  has  been  noticed  in  the  rule  just 
quoted,  at  Dorchester  it  began  at  seven  or  eight,  and  ended  at 
live  or  four,  according  to  the  season.  xVt  the  Hopkins  Gram- 
mar School  in  Xew  Haven,  it  began  at  six  in  the  moniing  the 
year  round,  and  ended  at  ^ve  in  the  summer  and  four  in  the 
winter,  with  an  intermission  from  eleven  to  one.  This  was  the 
stern  rule  of  the  forefathers.  To  get  a  slund)er-b()und  l)oy  up 
and  in  school  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  in  midwinter,  when 
the  sun  does  not  rise  until  a  quarter  past  seven,  must  have 
required  some  strenuousness  on  the  part  of  the  foremothers. 

In  all  the  towns,  especial  care  was  taken  that  no  boy  should 
be  deprived  of  the  privileges  of  the  school  because  his  parents 
were  poor.  Whatever  tuition  was  required,  the  town  })aid  if 
the  father  was  not  able  to  do  so.  ]\Iuch  attention  was  given  to 
the  manners  and  morals  of  the  pupils.  As  expressed  in  the 
Dorchester  rules,  the  aim  of  education  was  "the  trayning  u]i  of 
the  Children  of  the  Towne  in  religion,  learning,  and  Civilitie." 
This  was  the  distinct  aim  in  all  the  graimnar  schools.  The 
master  was  required  to  catechize  his  scholars  every  Saturday 
afternoon.  On  every  Monday  he  was  also  required  to  adiiioiiisli 
and  correct  those  who  had  been  guilty  of  any  misdemeaiuir  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  to  examine  the  more  advanced  scholars  mi  tlic 
sermon  of  the  preceding  Sunday.  At  Dorchester,  tlini  I  he 
master  might  lose  no  time,  one-half  of  the  mid-day  iiitcriiiission 
was  taken  for  this  exercise. 

Our   ancestors   held    decided    views    regarding    I  he    xaliic    of 

coi'])oral    ])unishment.       The    following    is    found    among    the 

Dorchester  rules : 

''Ami  because  the  Rodd  of  Correction  is  an  ordinance  of  God,  necessary 
sometimes  to  be  dispensed  vmto  Cliildren,  it  is  ordered  and  aj^reed  tliat  the 
scliooleniaster  shall  have  full  power  to  minister  Correction  {<>  all  i>r  any 
of  his  scholars,  without  respect  of  persons." 

^- New  Haven  Town  Records,  October,  10.51. 


12  THE    HOPKI^^S    GEAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEIST 

A  section,  however,  follows  for  the  direction  of  any  parent  who 
thinks  he  has  just  cause  of  complaint  against  the  master.  In 
the  earliest  knowii  rules  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  it  is 
required  of  the  master  that  "all  correction  be  with  Modera- 
tion" ;  but  it  is  certain  that  at  Hopkins,  as  in  all  other  schools 
of  the  time,  the  master  made  good  use  of  the  rod;  and  his 
jurisdiction  was  not  limited  to  the  school  grounds.  A  hundred 
years  or  so  ago,  during  the  brief  rectorship  of  Randolph  St<:)ne, 
a  Hopkins  boy,  who  was  called  up  for  punishment,  turned  and 
dashed  out  of  the  schoolhouse  and  steered  for  home.  The  rec- 
tor seized  his  rod,  chased  after  the  boy,  caught  him  on  the  home 
stretch,  and  triumphantly  flogged  him  in  his  father's  yard. 
This  method  of  discipline  had  already  sensed  to  harden  the 
hearts  as  well  as  toughen  the  hides  of  the  pupils.  Hopkins 
became  noted  as  a  school  difficult  to  manage.  In  1799  the  iirst 
President  Dwight  warned  James  L.  Kingsley,  afterward  Pro- 
fessor Kingsley  of  Yale  College,  against  taking  the  school,  "for 
it  was  so  bad  that  it  would  probably  injure  his  reputation."  ^^ 

Some  of  the  schoolhouses  were  poorly  built  and  badly  neg- 
lected. They  were  one-story  structures,  generally  about  twenty 
feet  square.  They  were  the  best  the  towns  could  afford,  and 
when  new,  were  j)robably  better  than  most  of  the  dwelling 
houses ;  but,  like  countiy  schoolhouses  of  a  later  date,  they 
sometimes  received  hard  usage.  In  1681,  Thomas  Bernard, 
the  Eoxbury  schoolmaster,  wrote  to  the  trustees  that  in  his 
schoolhouse  "the  glass  was  broken,  and  thereupon  very  raw  and 
cold,  the  iloor  very  much  broken  and  torn  up  to  kindle  fires,  the 
hearth  spoiled,  the  seats,  some  burnt  and  others  out  of  kilter." 
One  of  the  rules  of  the  Roxbury  trustees  provided  that  the 
father  of  any  boy  in  the  school  should  send  with  him  to  the 
schoolmaster  eight  shillings,  or  two  feet  of  good  wood,  and  if  he 
failed  to  do  either,  the  master  was  ordered  not  to  allow  his  boy 
to  have  the  benefit  of  the  fire.^* 

'^  Letter  of  Hawley  Olmstead. 

'*  I  have  been  much  interested  to  learn  from  Professor  Henry  R.  Lang 
that  at  the  school  which  he  attended  when  a  boy,  in  the  eastern  part  of 
Switzerland,  each  pupil  was  required  to  ^ring  from  home  his  share  of  the 
wood,  and  that  the  schoolmaster,  when  his  farm  required  his  attention, 
used  to  dismiss  his  scholars  and  start  out  with  his  hoe  or  his  scythe  over 
his  shoulder,  for  a  day  in  the  fields. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    ISTEW    EXGLAXD  13 

The  salary  of  a  master  varied  from  £20  to  £50  per  year. 
Generally  the  town  paid  the  master  a  fixed  sum  (sometimes 
£20),  and  allowed  him  to  charge  a  reasonable  fee  for  tuition 
(sometimes  20  shillings)  for  children  whose  parents  were  able 
to  pay.  During  the  century  and  a  quarter  after  the  founding 
of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  money  in  any  form  was  often 
difficult  to  obtain.  The  contributions  for  poor  students  in 
Harvard  College  from  Connecticut  towns  were  often  made  in 
corn;  this  was  known  as  "college  corn."  In  1668  the  Roxbury 
trustees  made  an  agreement  with  John  Prudden  that  his  salary 
of  £25  should*  be  paid  "three  quarters  in  Indian  Come  or  Peas 
and  ye  other  fourth-part  in  Barley."  In  1684  the  to^\^l  of 
Boston  paid  John  Cole  to  keep  a  school  £10  a  year  in  money  and 
£20  in  country  pay.  Three  shillings  in  country  pay  were  con- 
sidered equal  to  two  shillings  in  hard  money.  Without  doubt 
the  grammar  school  masters  were  often  glad  to  take  country  pay, 
or  wampum,  or  even  paper  money  of  uncertain  value.  When 
payment  was  made  in  "hard  money,"  it  was  not  always  in  the 
most  acceptable  kind  of  coin.  There  is  on  file  a  receipt  showing 
that  in  17T3  John  Eliot,  Master  of  the  Eoxbury  School,  received 
from  the  trustees,  as  part  of  his  year's  salary,  a  bag  of  coppers 
weighing  thirty-four  pounds.  We  can  easily  believe  that  before 
he  reached  home  with  this  installment,  he  had  no  desire  to  ask 
for  an  increase  of  salary. 

As  has  been  already  said,  before  1701  Hopkins  sent  its  stu- 
dents to  Harvard.  Of  the  graduates  of  Harvard  between  1660 
and  1700,  at  least  one  in  thirty  were  from  ISTew  Haven,  a  town 
which  did  not  have  at  the  end  of  this  period  more  than  five  hun- 
dred inhabitants.^^  Since  the  founding  of  Yale,  students  from 
Hopkins  have  gone  mainly  to  that  institution,  and  it  has  in  its 
catalogue  some  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  Yale  graduates. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  other  prc]iaratory  scho(jl  in  America  can 
show  such  a  disting-uished  list  of  trustees,  rectors,  and  alumni. 
Hopkins  is  the  only  preparatory  school  whose  students  have 
ever  been  admitted  to  Yale  without  examination.     Thirty-three 

"  Professor  Kingsley's  Historical  Discourse  on  the  200th  Anniversary  of 
the  Founding  of  New  Haven,  p.  93. 


l^t  TPIE    IIOPKI^^S    GRAMIMAR    SCHOOL    OF    i^fEW    HAVEN 

years  ago  this  summer,  an  arrangement  was  made  between  the 
Yale  Faculty  and  the  rector  of  the  school,  by  which  any  Hop- 
kins student  recommended  by  the  rector  might  be  admitted  to 
Yale  (N)Jlege  if  his  marks  in  the  school,  both  in  recitation  and 
on  examination,  were  satisfactory  to  the  Yale  Entrance  Com- 
mittee. On  basis  of  this  agreement,  thirteen  applicants  from 
Hopkins  were  admitted  in  full  without  taking  Yale  examina- 
tions, and  four  others  were  admitted,  by  passing  satisfactory 
examinations  in  the  subjects  in  which  their  marks  were  defi- 
cient. This  plan  could  not  be  continuccl  without  extending  its 
l)rivileges  to  other  schools,  which  did  not  seem  wise,  and  it  was 
in  force  only  one  year. 

The  early  New  England  gramnuir  schools' were  established  in 
''the  day  of  small  things,''  but  they  trained  up  boys  who  became 
strong  men,  fitted  "for  publick  sen^ices  in  church  and  common- 
wealth." Some  of  thein  were  prominent  leaders  in  the  move- 
ment that  made  us  an  inde])endent  nation.  These  schools  were 
part  of  a  plan  of  education  which  was  entirely  new  to  the  world ; 
a  system  of  public  schools  open  to  all  the  youths  of  the  towns 
without  regard  to  property  or  social  condition;  a  vsystem  which 
included  the  university  and  the  schools  which  offered  prepara- 
tion for  the  uni\'ersity,  as  well  as  the  elementary  schools.  Here 
was  the  foundation  of  the  public  school  system  of  Xew  England 
and  of  the  Ignited  States.  The  endowed  academies  that  were 
established  after  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  more 
modem  fitting  schools,  as  well  as  the  public  high  schools,  have 
all  descended  in  direct  line  from  these  early  grammar  schools. 
The  academies  taught  the  same  subjects  and  used  the  same  text- 
books and  the  same  methods.  Some  of  their  founders,  and 
many  of  the  teachers,  had  been  trained  in  the  grammar  schools. 
With  increased  endowments,  new  subjects  of  study  and  better 
('(|iii])ment,  the  quality  of  the  instruction  in  all  the  schools  has 
in  general  improved  from  generation  to  generation. 

But  it  shoubl  not  be  forgotten  that  if  the  founders  of  the 
colonies  of  ^Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  had  not  insisted  at 
the  beginning  on  the  establishment  of  the  grammar  schools,  it  is 
not  likely  that  any  such  general  system  of  higher  education  and 


EARLY    GEAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  15 

of  common  school  education  would  now  exist  in  this  country. 
What  a  difference  it  would  have  made  in  our  nation'.s  history  if 
these  early  colonists  had  lived  for  themselves  alone,  if  they  had 
given  their  attention  chiefly  to  acquiring  property,  as  settlers  in 
a  new  country  do  now,  and  had  oared  little  about  founding  a 
state  or  establishing  institutions  of  religion  and  education !  Our 
fathers  made  sacrifices  for  those  who  were  to  live  after  them, 
far  greater  than  men  would  be  willing  to  make  now,  and  we 
are  reaping  the  benefits  without  thinking  much  of  the  cost. 

This  ancient  school,  that  has  done  so  much  for  education  in 
this  country,  and  that  has  served  the  church  and  the  common- 
wealth by  training  up  for  them  so  many  able  men,  deserves  the 
loyal  interest  of  its  xMumni  and  of  the  people  of  ISTew  Haven, 
and  their  generous  support  in  placing  it  where  it  rightfully 
belongs — among  the  foremost  fitting  schools  of  the  country. 
The  little  band  that  crossed  the  seas  in  the  Hector  and  founded 
the  colony  of  ^N'ew  Haven  came  not  primarily  for  their  ovm. 
advantage.  We  are  all  vastly  indebted  to  these  men  for  their 
unselfish  efforts  in  behalf  of  those  who  should  live  after  them. 
The  gift  of  Governor  Hopkins  has  enabled  jSTew  Haven  to  main- 
tain for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  a  school  at  which  boys 
could  be  fitted  for  the  university,  and  that  with  little  cost  at  any 
time  to  the  city. 

You,  young  men  of  Hopkins,  can  never  repay  your  obliga- 
tions to  those  to  whom  they  are  rightfully  due,  but  you  can  live 
for  others  as  they  did.  You  have  your  life  before  you.  The 
great  privileges  of  school  and  college,  which  are  yours  through 
the  generosity  and  sacrifice  of  others,  are  given  you  not  to  be 
used  for  selfish  purposes ;  they  were  designed  to  prepare  you  for 
some  public  seiwice.  Make  all  your  plans  in  college  and  in  the 
professional  school  with  this  end  in  view.  Be  true  to  your  best 
selves,  remembering  that  without  character  the  highest  mental 
attainments  will  not  fit  you  to  do  the  work  in  the  world  which 
will  be  expected  of  you.  Do  not  avoid  hard  tasks,  either  by 
selecting  easy  courses  or  by  doing  your  work  dishonestly.  You 
will  not  gain  strength  by  doing  easy  things.  If  you  shirk  your 
responsibilities  and  have  no  moral  standard,  you  will  come  out 


16  THE    HOPKIISTS    GEAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    NEAV    HAVEN 

of  the  university  with  less  mental  and  moral  fiber  than  when 
you  enter  it.  By  and  by,  when  you  come  to  select  your  profes- 
sion, do  not  ask,  ''Where  can  I  get  the  most  for  myself?",  but 
''AVhere  can  I  do  the  most  for  my  country  ?".  The  only  satis- 
factory life  is  one  devoted  to  the  service  of  others.  The  trustees 
expect  every  Hopkins  man  to  remember  the  "true  intent  and 
jDui-pose"  of  Governor  Hopkins,  as  stated  in  his  will :  "to  give 
some  encouragement  in  those  foreigTi  plantations  for  the  breed- 
ing up  of  hopeful  youths,  both  at  the  grammar  school  and 
college,  for  the  public  service  of  the  country  in  future  times." 


1660-1910 

THE  HOPKINS  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL 

OF  NEW   HAVEN 

Historical  Discourse,  delivered  at  the  Two  Hundred  and  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of 
the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  June  18,  1910,  by  Hon.  Simeon  E.  Baldwin,  M.A., 
LL.D.,  President  of  the  Trustees.^ 

The  ancient  colony  of  N^ew  Haven  was  fonnded  in  1638,  by 
a  company  of  idealists.  The  unwritten  common  law  of  Eng- 
land they  determined  to  replace  by  the  written  word  of  God,  as 
they  read  it  in  the  Bible.  They  sought  to  set  up  in  the  wilder- 
ness a  city  of  God.  They  laid  it  out  after  the  fashion  of  the 
"new  Jerusalem."  It  was  not,  like  the  ordinary  ISTew  England 
town,  to  consist  of  one  broad  a^'enue,  to  be  intersected  by  cross 
streets,  as  occasion  might  serve.  There  must  be  perfection  of 
form,  from  the  outset.  They  must  be  able  to  say  of  it  from  the 
day  when  the  first  surveyors'  stakes  were  set,  "And  the  city 
lieth  foursquare,  and  the  length  is  as  large  as  the  breadth."  ^ 
There  must  be  a  central  marketplace,  foursquare  also.  There 
must  be,  from  the  first,  a  church  upon  it,  to  dominate  the  space, 
as  they  had  seen  cathedrals  dominate  marketplaces  in  European 
cities. 

There  must  be  next  a  school  of  learning,  to  give  their  children 
such  education  as  might  fit  them  best  to  serve  both  Church  and 
civil  State. 

There  must  be  a  public  library  for  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
munity at  large. 

The  school  came  first.  One  of  the  original  company  of 
settlers  was  Ezekiel  Cheever,  a  schoolmaster  by  profession,  who, 
after  a  dozen  years  spent  here,  removed  to  Boston  and  became 
the  head  of  the  Boston  Latin  School.     He  opened  a  school  in 

^  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  on  account  of  its  length  much  of  this  dis- 
course was  npcessarily  omitted  in  its  delivery. 
'  Revelations,  XXI,  16. 


IS  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

liis  own  house  in  iS'ew  Haven,  in  1638  or  1639.^  While  teach- 
ing here,  Cheever  wrote  a  Latin  grammar  and  reader,  which  for 
two  hundred  years  was  the  standard  text-book  in  ISTew  England 
for  those  beginning  the  study  of  that  language. 

The  vote  passed  in  1641  of  the  town  of  JSTew  Haven,  by 
which  this  school  was  made  free  to  all  the  inhabitants,  was 
among  the  earliest  public  declarations  in  the  United  States  of 
the  reasons  for  such  a  provision.  The  school  was  to  be  free, 
'"for  the  better  training  up  of  youth  in  this  town,  that,  through 
God's  blessing,  they  may  be  fitted  for  public  service  hereafter  in 
church  or  commonwealth."  •* 

In  1610  the  first  church,  built  foursquare,  fifty  feet  on  each 
side,  in  the  center  of  the  foursquare  marketplace,  was  opened 
for  public  worshi}).'^ 

In  1644  or  1645,  a  schoolhouse  was  also  placed  on  the  market- 
place, north  of  the  church,  and  not  far  from  where  the  United 
Church  now  stands.*^  Cheever  moved  his  school  into  it,  and  his 
salary  was  now  made  thirty  pounds  a  year.'^ 

The  library  came  last.  Rev.  Samuel  Eaton  had  come  to  ISTew 
Haven  with  Governor  Theophilus  Eaton,  who  was  his  brother, 
bringing  quite  a  collection  of  books.  These  he  left  behind  on 
his  return  to  England  in  1640.  A  legacy  of  a  hundred  pounds 
had  been  left  to  the  Governor,  under  an  English  will,  which, 
though  absolute  in  terms,  the  testator  intended  him  to  use  "for 
the  good  of  some  part  of  ISTew  England."  With  twenty  pounds 
of  this  he  j3urchased  his  brother's  books,  and  placed  them  in 
the  hands  of  his  pastor,  Rev.  John  Davenport,  "for  the  use  of 
a  college."  The  other  eighty  pounds  were  left  by  Governor 
Eaton's  will,  dated  August  12,  1656,  to  "be  improved  for  the 
good  of  ISTew  Haven,  by  the  advice  of  the  magistrates  and  elders 
there."  When  the  plan  for  a  college  at  ITew  Haven  was  finally 
abandoned,  Mr.  Davenport,  who  had  kept  the  books,  numbering 
over  a  hundred  volumes,  at  his  own  house,  turned  them  over  to 

^  Atwater,  History  of  the  Colony  of  New  Haven,  262. 

*  Barnard,  Am.  Journal  of  Education,  IV,  662. 

^  Blake,  Chronicles  of  New  Haven  Green,  15. 

^Ibid.,  182. 

U  N.  H.  Colony  Records,  62,  210. 


EARLY    GRAilMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGT-AND  19 

the  town.^  Thus  was  constituted  what  was  probably  the  first 
municipal  library  in  the  United  States.  The  books  were 
mainly  theological,  but  among  them  were  More's  Utopia,  and 
several  of  the  Latin  classics,  including  Ovid.  They  were  kept 
in  the  schoolhouse  on  the  marketplace  (now  the  Green)  until 
1689,  when  the  town  sold  them,  with  some  others  which  had 
been  added  to  them  in  1658,  to  the  minister,  Kev.  James  Pier- 
l^ont.  He  probably  made  the  purchase  with  a  view  of  present- 
ing them  to  the  projected  Connecticut  College,  which  he  helped 
to  found,  a  few  years  later,  now  become  Yale  University. 
Certain  it  is  that  many  of  them  were  among  its  earliest  posses- 
sions, and  are  still  in  its  library.^ 

Governor  Eaton  died  on  January  11,  1658.^^  In  the  pre- 
ceding March,  Edward  Hopkins,  the  husband  of  his  step- 
daughter, and  the  founder  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School, 
had  died  in  London.  The  two  men  were  but  ten  years  apart  in 
age,  and  had  been  on  teimis  of  special  intimacy.  One  had  been 
Governor  of  the  Colony  of  ISTew  Haven,  and  the  other  Governor 
of  the  Colony  of  Connecticut.  Eaton's  fortune  had  been 
largely  diminished  in  his  later  life.  Hopkins'  had  increased. 
Returning  to  England  in  1652,  he  received  in  1654  a  consider- 
able estate  under  the  will  of  a  brother,  including  the  lucrative 
and  sinecure  offices  of  Warden  of  the  Fleet  Prison  in  London 
and  Keeper  of  the  Palace  at  Westminster. 

His  own  will,  executed  shortly  before  his  death,^^  left  most 
of  his  estate  in  ISTew  England,  amounting  to  over  £1,400.^^  to 
his  "father,  Theophilus  Eaton,  Esq.,  Mr.  John  Davenport,  Mr. 
John  Cullock  and  Mr.  William  Goodwin  in  full  assurance  of 
their  trust  and  faithfulness  in  disposing  of  it  according  to  the 
true  intent  and  purpose  of  me  the  said  Edward  Hopkins  which 
is  to  give  some  encouragement  in  those  forrayne  Plantations  for 

*  Bacon,  Historical  Discourses,  354. 

°  Blake,  Chronicles,  198;  Dexter,  The  First  Public  Library  in  New  Haven, 
X.  H.  Colony  Hist.  Soc'y  Papers,  VI,  301. 

"Baldwin,  Theophilus  Eaton,  N.  H.  Colony  Hist.  Society  Papers,  VII, 
31,  38. 

"N.  E.  Hist,  and  Gen.  Register,  XVI,  167,  XXXVIII,  313;  Waters, 
Genealogical  Gleanings  in  England,  I,  62;    Col.  Rec.  of  Conn.,  I,  374. 

'-Barnard,  Journal  of  Education,  1828,  p.  276. 


20  THE    HOPKI^'S    GEAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

the  breeding  up  of  liopefiill  youths  both  at  the  Grammar  Schoole 
and  Colledg'e  for  the  pul)lique  service  of  the  Country  in  future 
tjmes."  ^^  Out  of  his  English  estate  he  left  also  the  reversion, 
of  £500  after  the  decease  of  his  wife,  to  be  made  over  to  New 
England  according  to  the  advice  of  his  "loving  friends,  Major 
Robert  Thomson  and  Mr.  Francis  Willoughby"  in  further  prose- 
cution of  ''the  aforesaid  public  ends  .  .  .  for  the  upholding  and 
promoting  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  those  parts 
of  the  earth." 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  man  can  immortalize  his 
name.  One  is  by  doing  some  great  work.  The  other  is  less 
difficult.  It  is  by  founding  some  institution  of  learning  that 
shall  bear  his  name,  and  so  founding  it  as  to  assure  its  attaining 
an  enduring  place. 

Happy  are  they  who  can  do  lioth.  To  that  small  company 
John  Harvard,  Elihu  Yale,  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  ISTicholas 
Brown,  who  gave  their  names  to  four  of  our  oldest  colleges,  did 
not  belong.  Edward  Hopkins  did.  It  was  given  to  him  to  be 
one  of  those  who,  in  1639,  on  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut,  were 
to  lay  the  cornerstone  of  constitutional  government  for  the 
world,  and  of  those  also  who,  four  years  later,  organized  the 
Confederation  of  the  United  Colonies  of  jSTew  England,  which 
was  the  prototype  of  the  United  States. 

After  receiving  a  good  gramuiar  school  education  at  Shrews- 
bury, he  went  into  business  in  London  and  became  a  prosperous 
merchant  in  the  trade  with  Turkey.  His  selection  as  the  first 
secretary  of  Connecticut,^'*  under  her  new  constitution,  indi- 
cates that  he  was  a  man  of  some  literary  acquirements,  and  this 
is  amply  confirmed  by  many  letters  and  papers  from  his  hand 
which  are  still  extant.  From  1644  to  1654  (his  last  election 
being  after  his  return  to  England)  he  was  Governor  of  this 
colony  every  other  year,  alternating  with  John  Hapies. 

Such  a  position  in  those  days  called  for  ability  of  a  high  order. 
A  colonial  governor  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  not  only  to 
direct  the  course  of  local  affairs.     He  was  often  called  upon  to 

"  A  copy  of  the  will  is  in  the  record  of  our  bicentennial  celebration,  p.  43. 
"  Col.  Rec.  of  Conn.,  I,  27. 


EAELY    GEAMMAE    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  21 

conduct  foreign  negotiations  in  matters  of  considerable  impor- 
tance. One  day  he  might  have  to  write  a  report  to  the  Lords 
of  Trade  and  Plantations,  or  a  letter  to  the  Lord  Protector ;^^ 
and  the  next  a  communication  to  the  Governor-General  of  ISTew 
ISTetherlands. 

The  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  of  ^ew  England, 
of  whom  Hopkins  was  one  continuously  from  104:3  to  1652, 
were  also  frequently  dealing  with  large  questions. 

In  the  autumn  of  1650,  while  he  was  President  of  the  Con- 
federation, a  long-standing  boundary  dispute  with  the  Dutch 
was  amicably  adjusted,  by  what  is  believed  to  have  been  the  first 
instance,  in  what  is  now  the  United  States,  of  settling  an  inter- 
national controversy  by  arbitration.  Governor  Stuyvesant 
went  to  Hartford,  where  the  Congress  of  the  LTnited  Colonies 
was  sitting,  to  negotiate  some  arrangement,  and  at  his  sugges- 
tion it  was  agreed  between  the  two  governments  of  iSTew  Eng- 
land and  N'ew  ^Netherlands  to  submit  the  difference  between 
them  to  the  decision  of  four  men,  of  whom  each  should  name 
two.  He  appointed  his  English  secretaiw.  Ensign  George 
Baxter  of  Long  Island,^ *^  and  Captain  Thomas  Willet,  who  had 
lived  for  years  first  in  Holland  and  then  in  'New  Amsterdam. 
The  Commissioners  appointed  Simon  Bradstreet  of  Massachu- 
setts and  Thomas  Prince  of  Plymouth.  The  four  arbitrators 
proceeded  promptly  to  a  hearing,  and  made  an  award,  establish- 
ing the  boundary  on  a  line  four  leagues  west  of  Greenwich,  sub- 
ject to  ratification  by  "the  two  States  of  England  and  Holland." 
Holland  gave  her  ratification  in  1656,  but  the  award  was,  when 
made,  ill  received  by  many  of  the  ISTew  l^etherlanders.  One  of 
them  wrote  that  the  English  had  entertained  Director  Stuy^^e- 
sant  with  great  pomp,  receiving  and  treating  him  like  a  prince, 
wherever  he  passed,  and  pulled  the  wool  over  his  eyes.-^"^  No 
doubt  Governor  Hopkins,  as  President  of  the  Confederation, 
fully  appreciated  the  value  in  diplomacy  of  appropriate  hospi- 

''  See  II  N.  H.  Col.  Rec.,  112. 

^«Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc,  2d  Series,  VI,  note;  O'Callaghan,  Hist,  of  New 
Netheiland,  II,  151,  312;    Hazard,  Am.  State  Papers,  II,  161,  169,  170,  549. 

"Documents  relating  to  the  Colonial  History  of  New  York,  I,  458-461; 
Trumbull,  Hist,  of  Conn.,  I,  194-201. 


22  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

talities.  His  corresi^ondence  shows  that  while  in  Hartford  he 
kept  open  house. 

He  received  from  Cromwell  the  appointment  of  JSTavy  Com- 
missioner in  1652,  which  seems  to  have  carried  the  duties  of 
purchasing  naval  supplies,  and  that  of  an  Admiralty  Commis- 
sioner in  1655.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  a  member  of 
Parliament,  representing  Clifton  in  Devonshire.^  ^ 

We  have  a  vivid  sketch  of  Hopkins  from  the  pen  of  Cotton 
Mather.  "In  his  government,"  says  Mather,  "he  acquitted 
himself  as  the  Solomon  of  his  colony"  and  "as  he  was  the  head, 
so  he  was  the  heart  of  the  people."  He  thought,  however,  that 
there  was  too  little,  among  them,  of  reverence  for  authority. 
"For  the  generality,"  he  said,  soon  after  his  return  to  his  native 
country,  the  people  of  'New  England  "have  not  considered  how 
they  were  to  honour  the  rules  of  God,  in  honouring  of  those 
whom  God  made  rulers  over  them,  and  I  fear  they  will  come  to 
smart  by  having  them  set  over  them,  that  it  will  be  an  hard  work 
to  honour,  and  that  will  hardly  be  capable  to  manage  their 
affairs." 

He  maintained  daily  family  prayers  in  his  household,  always 
reading,  and  explaining  as  he  read,  some  passage  from  the 
Bible ;  and,  continues  Mather,  "he  had  one  particular  way  to 
cause  attention  in  the  people  of  his  family,  which  was  to  ask 
any  person  that  seemed  careless  in  the  midst  of  his  discourse, 
What  was  it  that  I  read,  or  spoke,  last  ?  whereby  he  habituated 
them  unto  such  an  attention,  that  they  were  still  usually  able 
to  give  a  ready  account."  ^^ 

He  was  a  man  careful  in  speech.  Governor  Edward  Wins- 
low  of  the  Plymouth  colony,  one  of  his  associates  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  Colonies,  wrote  of  him  to  Governor 
Winthrop  as  one  "whom  we  all  know  to  be  a  man  that  makes 
conscience  of  his  words  as  well  as  his  accoiis."  "^ 

He  was  a  man  to  be  trusted,  without  misgivings.  The 
holders  of  the  Saybrook  Patent  felt  so,  when  they  put  all  the 

^«Dict.  of  National  Biography;    N.  E.  Hist,  and  Gen.  Reg.,  XXVII,  33, 
XXX,  73. 

'^Magnalia,  Hartford  Ed.,  I,  132-4. 

=»  N.  E.  Hist,  and  Gen.  Reg.,  XXIX,  238. 


EARLY    GRA:MMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    ^'EW    EXGLAXD  23 

arrangements  for  settling  the  plantation  in  his  hands.^^ 
Colonel  Fenwick  felt  so,  when  in  a  codicil  to  his  will,  made 
March  9,  1657  (K  S.),  he  gave  £500  to  the  public  use  of  ITew 
England,  if  his  "^'loving  friend"  Edward  Hopkins,  late  Warden 
of  the  Fleet,  "think  fit."  -- 

Happy  is  the  institution  which  has  a.  founder  with  such  titles 
to  the  regard  of  posterity  as  Edward  Hopkins.  He  knew  the 
all-importance  of  education  in  a  free  commonwealth.  He 
looked  foi-ward  to  what  we  can  now  look  back  upon. 

The  history  of  Europe  has  repeated  itself,  in  general  outline, 
in  the  United  States. 

There  were  the  early  days  of  colonies  of  civilized  nations  on 
the  seacoast,  hemmed  in  by  savage  neighbors. 

There  were  the  dark  ages  of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  centuries,  when  the  first  generations 
of  colonists,  who  brought  learning  and  literature  with  them,  had 
died  out,  and  for  the  most  part  what  they  had  thus  brought  had 
died  with  them. 

There  was  closely  following  the  Benaissance,  when  American 
scholarship  and  American  letters  took  shape,  and  there  were 
again  those  who  found  their  inspiration  in  classical  literature 
and  art. 

Then  came  the  middle  ages, — the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth 
centurj^  and  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth, — an  era  of  solid 
growth,  of  splendid  invention,  of  strong  activities  in  all  direc- 
tions. 

The  Civil  War  and  the  destruction  of  slavery  followed.  Dar- 
win's new  philosophy  of  creation  appeared,  to  work  another 
Reformation  of  the  Church,  Modem  government,  world- 
congresses  and  world-conventions,  modern  life,  became  estab- 
lished, and  we  hail  the  wider  and  wiser  knowledge  of  the 
j)resent  day,- — and  the  approach  of  a  still  wider  and  wiser 
knowledge  which  the  future  must  hold  in  store. 

It  was  in  the  very  first  of  these  successive  eras  that  the  Hop- 
kins Grammar  School  came  into  being; — in  the  first,  and  to 
guard  against  the  evils  threatened  in  the  next,  and  foreseen 
already  by  him  who  was  its  founder. 

«76i(Z.,  XLII,  280.  "^  lUd.,  XXXVIII,  199. 


24  THE    nOPKIXS    GEAM:yrAR    SCHOOL    OF    XEW    HxiVEN 

The  leaders  in  the  "Jurisdiction"  of  jSTew  Haven  had,  from 
the  first,  hoped  that  a  college  would  be  established  there.  In 
Ihe  original  layout  of  the  suburbs  around  the  palisade  of  the 
half-mile  square,  which  was  to  constitute  the  to^\T.i  proper,  a 
considerable  tract,  known  as  the  Ovster  Shell  Field,  was 
reserved  ''for  the  use  and  benefit  of  a  college,"  "^  and  into  some- 
thing of  that  nature  it  was  doubtless  hoped  that  Cheever's  school 
would  grow.  A  few  years  later  (1647),  when  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  dispose  of  such  of  the  town  lands  as  had  not 
already  been  allotted,  they  were  directed  ''allso  to  consider  and 
reserve  what  lott,  they  shall  see  meete  and  most  commodious 
for  a  colledg,  w^'h  they  dissire  maye  bee  sett  vp,  so  soone  as  their 
abilitie  will  reach  thenmto."  -*  This,  it  will  be  noted,  was  not 
a  provision  for  setting  apart  lands  as  a  foundation  for  the 
support  of  a  college,  Avhich  had  been  done  (though  infonually) 
already.  It  was  a  provision  for  a  proper  site  for  the  college 
buildings.  That  chosen  was  the  lot  originally  reserved  for  a 
Mrs.  Eld  red,  fronting  the  Green,  on  the  eastern  part  of  which 
the  Public  Library  now  stands. 

]^o  doubt  Governor  Hopkins  was  from  the  first  aware  of  the 
plans  of  Xew  Haven  in  respect  to  a  college,  and  not  long  before 
the  date  of  his  will  his  attention  had  been  especially  called  to 
the  subject  by  a  letter  from  ^Mr.  Davenport.  His  bequest,  it 
will  be  remembered,  is  to  support  education  ''both  at  the 
Grammar  Schoole  and  Colledge." 

The  term  "Grammar  School"  in  the  seventeenth  century 
signified  a  school  for  instniction  in  such  higher  learning  as 
might  be  necessary  in  preparation  for  entering  coUege.^^  As 
used  with  reference  to  the  Hopkins  foundation  at  Hadley,  the 
President  and  Council  of  ^Massachusetts  Bay  and  ISTew  Hamp- 
shire resolved,  in  1086,  that  it  could  "be  no  otherwise  inter- 
preted but  to  be  a  Schoole  holden  by  a  Master  capiable  to 
instruct  children  and  fit  them  for  the  University."  -"^ 

!N"ot  long  after  the  provision  for  a  college  in  Governor  Hop- 

'^  Atwater,  History  of  the  Colony  of  New  Haven,  272. 

"I  N.  H.  Col.  Rec.,  376. 

"  I  Col.  Rec.  of  Conn.,  555. 

="  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proceedinos,  XIII,  282. 


EAKLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  25 

kins'  will  became  known,  a  clergyman  in  Bennnda-'''  wrote  (on 
March  5,  1658,  IT.  S.)  to  Governor  Winthrop  of  Connecticut, 
offering-  his  services  as  a  professor  or  instructor  in  the  college 
when  set  up,  and  describing  himself  as  familiar  with  ten 
languages.-^ 

The  times  were  not  yet  ripe  for  a  college  in  the  l^ew  Haven 
Colony.  A  colony  grammar  school  was,  however,  established 
in  1059,  by  vote  of  the  General  Court.  Guilford  offered  the 
handsome  stone  house,  built  by  Kev.  Henry  Whitfield,  and  still 
standing,  as  a  schoolhouse,  if  it  were  set  up  there ;  but  after 
the  intentions  of  the  trustees  under  the  Hopkins  will  became 
known,  Xew  Haven  was  given  the  preference,  "as  being  a  place 
most  probable  to  advantage  the  well  carrying  on  of  the  schoole 
for  y*^  ends  sought  after  and  endeavoured  after  thereby."  ^^ 

The  Grammar  School  of  ISTew  Haven  was  heir  to  the  college 
of  Xew  Haven.  In  1660,  while  the  hope  of  setting  up  a  col- 
lege here  had  not  been  wholly  abandoned,  it  had  grown  dim, 
and  in  prescribing  the  terms  of  the  trust  under  the  Hopkins 
bequest,  Davenport  provided  that  if  no  place  can  be  found  more 
convenient,  Mrs.  Eldred's  lot  should  be  given  by  the  town  "for 
the  vse  of  the  colledg  &  of  y®  colony  grammar  schole  if  it  be  in 
this  toune ;    else  onely  for  the  colledge."  ^^ 

It  was  this  colony  grammar  school  which  virtually  became 
the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  and  by  such  almost  imper- 
ceptible progression,  that  their  fortunes  have  been  not  unfairly 
identified.^^ 

The  first  master,  Jeremiah  Peck  of  Guilford,  was  engaged  on 
June  28,  1660,  by  a  committee  of  all  the  magistrates  and  settled 
ministers  of  the  colony,  "to  teach  the  scholars  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew,  and  fit  them  for  the  college."      He  asked,  the  next 

-^  Rev.  Thomas  BrowTie. 

='Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proceedings,  VIII,  282. 

="  2  N.  H.  Col.  Rec,  301,  374,  377. 

^"2  N.  H.  Col.  Rec,  1. 

'^]Sr.  H.  Col.  Rec.,  II,  375,  376;  Atwater,  Hist,  of  N.  H.  Colony,  275,  281: 
Cf.  L.  W.  Bacon,  Historical  Discourse  on  the  Two  Hundredth  Anniversary 
of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  46. 


26  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

spring,  that  "Bectores  Scliolae,"  that  is,  as  he  used  this  term, 
directors  of  the  school,  ''be  now  aj^pointed  and  established,"  and 
the  general  Court  of  the  colony  named  for  that  purpose  Mr. 
Davenport,  his  associate,  Mr.  Street,  and  Abraham  Pierson,  the 
minister  at  Branford.^- 

But  the  existence  of  the  colony  itself  was  now  in  jeopardy. 
Its  good  friend,  the  Lord  Protector,  had  passed  away  and  the 
Stuarts  were  again  upon  the  throne.  Connecticut  had  obtained 
a  charter  which  covered  everything  in  the  jurisdiction  of  ISTew 
Haven.  A  fruitless  struggle  for  independence  followed,  and 
there  was  no  full  submission  to  the  government  at  Hartford 
until  1665. 

The  colony  grammar  school  did  not  long  survive  the  grant  of 
the  Winthrop  charter.  A  towai  school  for  ISTew  Haven  suc- 
ceeded it,  kept  by  George  Pardee,  who  was  engaged  by  vote  of  a 
town  meeting  held  June  18,  1663,  to  give  the  children  instruc- 
tion in  English,  "and  to  carry  them  on  in  Lattine  soe  far  as  he 
could;  alsoe  to  leame  them  to  write.  Something  was  spoken 
about  teaching  arithmetic  as  very  nessary  in  these  parts."  .  .  . 
"He  was  alsoe  advised  to  be  carefull  to  instruct  the  youth  in 
point  of  manners,  there  being  a  great  fault  in  that  respect,  as 
some  expresst."  ^^ 

Two  months  later  Mr.  Davenport  heard  of  a  suitable  person 
in  Massachusetts  who  could  be  had  to  teach  a  grammar  school, 
and  urged  his  immediate  engagement,  but  as  Mr.  Pardee  had 
been  appointed  for  a  year,  no  change  could  be  made. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  school  year,  the  surviving  trustees 
under  Governor  Hopkins'  will  made  a  final  division  of  the  funds 
bequeathed.  By  this  it  was  agreed  that  £412  and  half  of  the 
reversion  to  the  £500  left  for  the  benefit  of  Mrs.  Hopkins 
during  her  life,  should  be  applied  to  such  uses  of  the  nature 
indicated  in  the  will  as  Mr.  Davenport  should  prescribe.  On 
the  next  day  (April  28,  1664),  Davenport  appeared  in  town 
meeting  and  renewed  his  request  that  a  proper  teacher  for  a 
grammar  school   should   be   at   once   procured.     He  was   now 

"  N.  H.  Col.  Rec,  II,  407,  408. 
'^  N.  H.  Town  Rec,  MSS.  III. 


EARLY    GRAMMAE    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  27 

ready,  he  said,  by  reason  of  "the  failing  of  the  Colony  School" 
to  disjDOse  of  the  Hopkins  bequest  by  giving  the  fund  to  the 
town,  ''to  be  improved  to  that  End  for  which  it  was  given  by 
Mr.  Hojjkins,  viz — to  fit  youth  (by  learning)  for  the  service  of 
God  in  church  and  commonwealth."  He  asked  that  immediate 
application  be  made  to  the  President  of  Harvard  "for  an  able 
man  for  the  work  to  teach  the  Languages,"  and  a  committee 
appointed  to  receive  the  fund,  send  for  the  schoolmaster,  and 
"also,  there  being  many  books  belonging  to  the  town,  that  they 
might  consider  about  building  a  library  upon"  the  Eldred  lot.^'* 
This  last  suggestion  remained  under  consideration  for  two 
hundred  and  forty-four  years,  and  was  then  adopted. 

The  town  accepted  the  trust,  made  the  "Magistrates,  Elders, 
Deacons,  and  Deputies  of  the  Court,  as  they  shall  arise"  the 
committee  to  take  it  in  charge,  and  appropriated  £30  a  yesir 
toward  the  maintenance  of  a  Grammar  School. ^^  Such  a  school 
was  maintained  for  the  next  three  years.  The  tradition  is  that 
it  was  under  the  charge  of  one  of  the  sons  of  President 
Chauncey  of  Harvard.  This  was  probably  Rev.  ]SJ"athaniel 
Chauncey,  who  was  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1661,  and  became 
pastor  of  the  church  at  Windsor  in  1667.^^ 

In  that  year  the  school  passed  into  the  hands  of  Samuel 
Street,  a  son  of  Rev.  ISTicholas  Street,  one  of  the  Hopkins  com- 
mittee,— the  town  paying  him  £30,  to  which  £10  was  added 
from  the  Hopkins  Fund.  During  his  incumbency,  Mr.  Daven- 
port made  the  final  and  formal  transfer  of  his  title  to  the  fund, 
under  date  of  April  18,  1668.  In  this  he  conveyed  it  to  seven 
trustees  to  the  end  that  "the  grammar  school  or  college  at  ISTew 
Haven,  already  founded  and  begun  may  be  provided  for,  main- 
tained and  continued,"  but  on  condition  that  "the  rent,  profit 
and  improvement  of  the  Oyster  shell  field  .  .  .  formerly 
separated  and  reserved  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  a  college  at 
jSTew  Haven  and  also  one  other  field  commonly  called  Mrs. 
Eldred's  lot"  of  about  three  acres,  "be  to  the  use  of  the  said 

"  Ihid.     L.  W.  Bacon,  Hist.  Discourse,  52. 
^Ubid.,  53. 

^'  Stiles,  Hist,  of  Ancient  Windsor,  I,  198.  Cf.  Orcutt,  Hist,  of  Stratford 
and  Bridgeport,  175. 


28  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

school  at  Xew  Haven  forever  settled,  ratified,  and  confirmed 
hj  tlie  said  town  accordingly.''  ^" 

Mr.  Street  resigned  his  place  as  Rector  of  the  School  in  1673, 
and  George  Pardee  was  reappointed.  He  seems  to  have  been 
a  sensible  and  modest  man,  who  did  not  claim  to  be  and  was  not 
competent  to  teach  a  grammar  school,  and  a  few  years  later 
he  relinquished  his  charge  to  Samuel  Munson,  who  had  had 
better  advantages  of  classical  education.^^ 

The  23resent  Hector  is  the  one  hundredth  of  those  who  have 
filled  that  place.  It  was  occupied  during  most  of  the  earlier 
history  of  the  School  by  few  for  any  length  of  time.  As  the 
women  of  Rome  under  the  empire  were  said  to  date  time,  not 
from  the  annual  consuls,  but  their  annual  husbands,  so  the 
Hopkins  Grammar  School  had  its  annual  or  at  best  its  biennial 
Rector. 

Its  connection  with  Yale  has  always  been  of  the  closest,  and 
what  the  Germans  have  called  the  pedagogical  year,  which 
follows  the  close  of  a  university  course,  was  often  the  occasion 
for  one  Rector's  going  out  and  another  Rector's  coming  in. 
The  enthusiasm  of  youth;  the  eagerness  to  share  with  others 
fresh  acquirements,  which  characterizes  all  generous  minds ; 
the  compelling  power  of  new-gained  knowledge ; — these,  no 
doubt,  were  the  inspiration  of  many  of  these  men,  as  they  began 
the  real  duties  of  life  by  stepping  from  the  commencement  stage 
to  the  teacher's  desk.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  lack  of  all 
experience,  and  the  absence  of  any  established  perspective  of 
vision,  must  often  have  led  to  a  range  of  teaching  above  the 
heads  of  the  classes  that  were  subject  to  it,  and  but  ill-adapted 
to  their  real  necessities. 

It  has  given  the  School,  however,  an  illustrious  roll  of 
Rectors,  and  for  like  reasons,  of  sub-masters. 

Among  those  who  have  been  attached  to  it,  as  such,  or  are 
among  its  trustees  or  Alumni,  are  seven  Presidents  of  Yale 
(Pierson,  the  two  Dwights,  Day,  Woolsey,  Porter,  and  Hadley)  ; 
ten  Presidents  of  other  colleges  or  universities ;  one  hundred  and 

^  Atwater,  Hist.,  555. 

"8  Atwater,  Hist,  of  N".  H.  Col.,  280;  L.  W.  Bacon,  Hist.  Discourse,  54,  55. 


EAKLY    GEAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    XEW    EXGLA^'D  29 

eleven  Professors  in  such  institutions ;  six  Governors  of  Colo- 
nies or  States ;  one  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States ;  four  Chief  Justices  of  States ;  twenty-five 
other  Judges  of  high  courts ;  three  cabinet  officers  of  the  United 
States ;  three  foreign  ministers ;  eight  United  States  Senators ; 
twenty  members  of  Congress ;  three  Bishops  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  church ;  two  Major  Generals  of  the  United  States 
Army ;  two  Brigadier  Generals  of  volunteers  in  the  Civil  War, 
and  one  Brigadier  General  in  the  Confederate  army ;  six  mem- 
bers of  the  jSTational  Academy  of  Science;  three  members  of 
the  ISTational  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters ;  and  a  very  large 
number  who  have  been  Presidents  of  banks,  insurance  com- 
j)anies,  and  other  large  business  concerns,  or  of  such  national 
societies  as  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  the  American  Bar 
Association,  the  American  Historical  Association,  the  American 
Social  Science  Association,  the  American  Society  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Labor  Legislation,  and  the  International  Law  Asso- 
ciation. 

A  change  of  policy  in  respect  to  the  choice  of  teachers  began 
in  1839,  with  the  appointment  of  Hawley  Olmstead  as  Rector. 
Since  then  the  aim  has  been  to  secure,  so  far  as  might  be  practi- 
cable, a  teaching  force  which  should  be  permanent,  of  men  who 
had  taken  up  that  profession  as  their  life  work. 

And  what  life  work  is  there  which  offers  more  ?  The  main 
duty  of  every  generation  of  mankind  must  always  be  to  rear  the 
next.  AVhat  a  man  does  in  life  is  largely  measurable  by  the 
way  he  has  impressed  himself  on  the  minds  of  others  when  they 
are  in  the  most  impressionable  stage.  They  will  live  after  him 
and  he  will  live  in  them.  jSTo  English  scholar  of  his  generation 
did  the  work  of  Arnold ;  and  none  to-day  is  as  well  remembered 
by  the  English-speaking  race.  The  impulses  of  good  that  went 
out  from  one  strong  man  at  Rugby,  perpetuated  by  grateful  boys 
trained  up  by  Arnold's  fostering  care  to  become  leaders  of  men, 
by  Stanley  and  Hughes  in  literature,  and  by  thousands  in  the 
life  of  English  homes, — these  have  outrun  the  sea,  and  helped 
also  to  build  up  here,  on  another  continent,  that  sturdy  uianli- 


30  THE    HOPKINS    GEAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    IVEW    HAVEN 

ness  and  faith  in  God  without  which  all  education  is  feeble  and 
incomplete. 

Eight  years  ago  a  catalogue  was  prepared  and  published  of 
the  trustees,  teachers,  and  Alumni  of  the  School  from  its  origi- 
nal foundation  to  that  time.  A  copy  of  this  will  be  presented 
to  each  of  those  attending  the  dinner  this  evening,  by  way  of  a 
lasting  souvenir  of  the  occasion. 

It  shows  that  since  the  retirement  of  Hawley  Olmstead,  terms 
of  equal  or  greater  length  have  been  served  by  four  of  his  suc- 
cessors, the  Rev.  Dr.  Whiton,  now  of  ISTew  York  City,  the  late 
Henry  IST.  Johnson  of  Meriden,  William  L.  Gushing,  now  Head- 
master of  the  Westminster  School  at  Simsbury,  and  George  L. 
Fox,  now  of  the  University  School  in  this  city. 

The  first  of  this  series  of  what  we  may  call  permanent 
Rectors,  Hawley  Olmstead,  had  been  for  many  years  teacher  of 
a  school  at  Wilton  before  he  became  Rector  of  the  Hopkins 
Grammar  School.  He  was  a  staunch  believer  in  the  value  of  a 
thorough  classical  education.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  once  said  of 
him  that  he  seemed  to  think  that  a  man  ought  to  spend  half  his 
life  in  preparing  for  college  and  the  other  half  in  going  through 
college.  President  Dwight,  in  his  "Memories  of  Yale  Life  and 
Men,"  has  given  a  chapter  to  the  "Old  Dominie,"  as  his  boys 
called  him,  and  speaks  of  him,  as  do  all  who  studied  under  his 
eye,  with  affection  and  respect.  He  was  an  apt  teacher  and, 
while  no  martinet,  a  successful  disciplinarian. 

Of  those  who  have  sensed  long  terms  since  1819,  all  survive 
save  one. 

I  do  not  speak  here  in  praise  of  the  living,  but  pause  to  say 
of  the  Rector  who  has  passed  away,  Mr.  Henry  IST.  Johnson, 
that  under  his  superintendence  the  number  of  students  was 
greater  than  ever  before  during  the  long  history  of  the  School. 
In  1873  there  were  two  hundred  and  eight  in  attendance, 
requiring  the  services  of  seven  assistant  teachers. 

The  present  Rector  became  one  of  the  School  Faculty  in  1897 
and  succeeded  to  the  headship  in  1906. 

I  may  add  that  one  of  the  sub-masters,  Mr.  James  B.  Ryder, 
who   entered   the   Faculty  in   1868,   continued   in   active   and 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  31 

effective  sei-^dce  until,  much  to  the  regret  of  the  trustees,  he 
retired  in  1907. 

Until  1849,  the  number  of  students  was  never  very  great, 
and  all  instruction  was  given  by  the  Rector. 

One  additional  instructor  was  added  that  year,  a  son  of 
Hawley  Olmstead.  He  was  always  spoken  of  by  the  students 
as  the  "Young  Dominie,"  to  distinguish  him  from  his  father, 
the  "Old  Dominie."  A  second  and  third  instructor  were  soon 
added,  and  at  present  the  number  of  the  School  Faculty  is 
eleven.  Most  of  the  sub-masters,  however,  are  also  instructors 
in  Yale  University,  and  devote  but  a  part  of  their  time  to  the 
School. 

The  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Association  was  organized  by 
the  Alumni  of  the  School  in  1858.  Its  especial  purpose  was  to 
see  to  it  that  the  bicentennial  anniversary  of  the  School  was 
properly  celebrated,  and  in  this  it  was  entirely  successful.  The 
Historical  Discourse  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Woolsey 
Bacon,  delivered  on  that  occasion,  is  a  classic  in  American 
school  literature. 

In  1892  another  association  was  organized,  under  the  name 
of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Alumni  Association,  and  in 
1893  its  annual  meeting  took  the  shape  of  a  reception  tendered 
to  Mr.  Ryder  in  honor  of  his  completing  twenty-five  years  of 
service  in  the  School.^^ 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  fix  the  precise  date  of  the  original 
foundation  of  an  ancient  institution.  That  for  the  Hopkins 
Grammar  School  of  J^ew  Haven  was  determined  for  us  by  a 
vote  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Association*"  passed  in 
1858.  It  is  June  4,  1G60,  O.  S.,  or  June  14,  1660,  K  S. 
From  that  time  on  there  has  been,  as  we  have  seen,  a  history, 
substantially  continuous,  of  a  grammar  school  in  ISTew  Haven, 
established  in  reliance  upon  aid  expected  from  the  trustees 
under  Governor  Hopkins'  will. 

This  week,  therefore,  by  our  present  calendar,  ends  the  two 
hundred  and  fiftieth  year  in  the  long  history  of  the  institution. 

"•The  Hopkinsonian  for  1896,  26. 

*'L.  W.  Bacon,  Hist.  Discourse  on  the  Celebration  of  the  Two  Hundredth 
Anniversary  of  the  Founding  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  8,  67. 


32  THE    HOPKINS    GKAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

More  than  two  hundred  and  forty  years  ago  the  Colony  of  ITew 
Haven  passed  away,  by  the  common  fate  of  nations,  absorbed 
by  a  neighboring  colony  that  was  stronger  and  more  aggressive. 
But  the  dead  colony  left  here  a  living  church  and  a  living 
school.  Religion  and  education  survive  empire.  They  are  the 
forces  out  of  which  all  governments  emerge;  all,  that  is,  that 
are  worthy  of  the  name. 

Before  1683,  whatever  had  been  recorded  respecting  the 
grammar  school  was  to  be  found  scattered  through  the  Colony 
or  town  records  or  those  of  the  proprietors  of  common  and 
undivided  lands.  From  that  date  on,  the  School  has  main- 
tained its  own  records.  One  of  the  votes  of  the  tiiistees, — 
passed  in  1691, — in  regard  to  the  adjustment  of  the  first 
treasurer's  accounts,  is  recorded  both  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
town  land  records  and  in  the  first  volume  of  the  School  records. 
The  latter,  both  by  the  vote  of  the  trustees  (or,  as  they  styled 
themselves,  ''the  Committee  for  the  College  and  School  estate,") 
and  in  the  record  of  it  by  the  town,  is  styled  "the  College  Book 
of  Records." 

It  is  worth  remark  that  in  the  MSS.  Archives  of  the  State, 
the  earliest  papers  preserved  in  the  volume  entitled  ''Colleges 
and  Schools"  are  some  of  those  relating  to  the  Hopkins  Gram- 
mar School.  The  first  is  a  power  of  attorney  from  "Henry 
Dalley  of  London,  Gent.  Heir  and  Executor  of  the  last  Will  and 
Testament  of  Edward  Hopkins,  Esquire,  deceased,"  empower- 
ing the  three  surviving  trustees  under  the  will  to  take  possession 
of  all  the  property  left  by  the  testator  in  JSTew  England  and 
apply  it  to  the  purposes  which  the  will  declared.  This  paper 
bears  date  March  9,  1660. 

On  May  30,  1660  (O.  S.),  which  was  Election  Day,  John 
Davenport  left  with  the  General  Court  of  the  Colony  of  jSTew 
Haven  a  copy  of  Governor  Hopkins'  will,  the  inventory  of  his 
estate  in  'New  England,  its  appraisal,  and  certain  writings  in 
regard  to  the  disposition  of  the  bequest,  "signed  by  y^  surviveing 
trustees  for  their  attorneyes,  &,  some  letters"  between  the  other 


EAELY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    EXGLAXD  33 

trustees  and  himself.  A  few  days  later,  on  June  1-4,  1660 
(N.  S.),  in  the  formal  instrument  bj  which  he  dedicated  the 
funds  distributed  by  the  trustees  to  be  used  at  New  Haven,  "for 
promoueing  the  colledg-worke  in  a  graduall  way,  for  the  educa- 
tion of  youth  in  good  literature,"  he  required  the  appointment 
by  the  General  Court  of  a  ''Steward  or  Receiver  for  the  Schoole 
&  coUedg"  to  act  as  treasurer,  and  added  ''because  it  is  requisite 
that  the  writeings  w*^^  concerne  M''.  Hopkins  his  estate  be  safely 
kept,  in  order  therevnto,  the  said  John  Davenport  desireth  that 
a  convenient  chest  be  made  with  2  locks  &  2  keies,  &  be  placed 
in  y*^  house  of  y®  gouemo''  or  of  the  steward,  in  some  safe  roome, 
til  a  more  j)ublic  jDlace  (as  a  library  or  the  like)  may  be  p^'pared, 
&  that  one  keye  be  in  the  hand  of  the  gouemo'',  the  other  in  y^ 
stewards  hand ;  that  in  this  chest  all  the  writeings  now  delivered 
by  him  to  the  magistrates  may  be  kept,  &  all  other  bills,  bonds, 
acquitances,  orders,  or  whatsoeuer  writeings  that  may  concerne 
this  business  be  put  &  kept  there."  ^^ 

The  present  trustees  of  the  School  have  in  the  hands  of  their 
treasurer  a  "convenient  chest"  in  the  form  of  a  brass-nailed 
trunk,  apparently  of  eighteenth  century  make,  with  one  lock 
and  no  key,  which  has  descended  to  them  as  the  successor  of  that 
which,  no  doubt,  was  procured  in  the  seventeenth.  The  original 
writings  are  not  in  it,  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  earliest 
volume  of  school  records  are  copies  attested  as  true  by  "William 
Jones,  jSJ'otary  Public."  This  ancient  book  is  bound  in 
vellum,'*-  and  on  the  first  page  is  thus  entitled : 

"Records  of  ye  last  Will  &  testament  of  Edward  Hopkins  Esq. 
And  of  a  Deed  of  Guift  made  by  the  Reverend  M"".  John 
Davenport   (of  a  Legacy  given  by  ye  s^  Ed: Hopkins)   unto  Trustees 
in  ye  s<i  Deed  named  for  ye  vses  therein  mentioned  according 
To  the  mind  and  will  of  the  sd  Donos  &  other  Instrunits 
As  also  an  accompt  of  ye  s^  Estate,  &  ye  Improvemt  or  Dispose 

thereof 

"K  H.  Col.  Rec,  II,  356,  369,  373.  The  terms  O.  S.  and  X.  S.  are 
here  used  with  reference  to  the  provision  in  the  Act  of  Parliament  of  1751, 
by  which  eleven  days  were  cut  out  of  the  month  of  September,  1752. 

*^  It  was  rebound  in  its  present  shape  in  1739,  by  John  Punderson,  at  a 
cost  of  eight  shillings. 


34  THE    HOPKINS    GKAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

to  ye  ends  afores^:     And  of  ye  Orders  of  ye  s<i  Trustees  from 

tyme  to 
tyme  in  pursuance  of 
theire  Trust 


16  -  83 


The  trustees  originally  appointed  by  Mr.  Davenport  were 
William  Jones,  Rev.  ISTicholas  Street,  ]\Iattliew  Gilbert,  John 
Davenport,  Junior,  James  Bishop,  William  Peck,  and  Roger 
Ailing.  He  chose  them  carefully  and  wisely.  Gilbert  and 
Jones  were  successively  Deputy  Governors  of  the  Colony. 
Bishop  was  its  Secretary,  and  afterwards  Deputy  Governor  of 
Connecticut,  in  which  office  he  was  succeeded  by  Jones.  In 
addition  Gilbert  was  for  thirteen  years,  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
life,  an  "assistant,"  or  magistrate  of  Connecticut.  Roger 
Ailing  was  Treasurer  of  the  Colony  of  I^ew  Haven,  and 
William  Peck  was  a  deacon  in  the  l^ew  Haven  church. 

Governor  Jones  was  a  London  attorney,  and  a  follower  of 
Cromwell's  fortunes.  In  1659  he  had  married,  in  London,  a 
daughter  of  Governor  Eaton,  who  had  probably  been  a  member 
of  Governor  Hopkins'  family  there,  keeping  house  for  him  at 
the  time  of  his  death."^^  In  a  letter  of  that  year  to  Mr.  Daven- 
port, he  is  described  as  "a  godly  man,  who  hath  2  children  & 
200  1.  per  annum."  He  hurried  out  of  England,  shortly  after 
the  Restoration,  with  the  Regicides,  Goffe  and  Whalley,  and 
arrived  at  his  wife's  old  home  in  the  summer  of  1660.^*  The 
venerable  volume  with  which  the  records  of  the  trustees  begin 
was  opened  by  him.  His  first  act  was  to  copy  into  them  in  full 
Governor  Hopkins'  will  of  March  7,  1657 ;  Mr.  Davenport's 
deed  of  gift  to  the  Trustees  of  April  8,  1668;  a  power  of 
ajttomey  from  the  trustees  named  in  Governor  Hopkins'  will  to 
collect  the  assets  of  the  estate,  given  to  Thomas  Bull,  l^athaniel 
Ward,  and  Edward  Gibbons  of  Hartford,  under  date  of  Sep- 

*>  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  4th  Series,  VIII,  610. 

"Mass.    Hist.    Soc.    Coll.,  4tli    Series,  VII,  501,  518:     VIII,  611,  a,  123. 
Savage  Gen.  Diet. 


'early    grammar    schools    of    new    ENGLAND  35 

tember  30,  1658;  the  agreement  of  the  trustees  as  to  the 
apportionment  of  the  funds  between  Hartford,  Hadley,  and 
Harv^ard  College,  dated  June  13,  1664;  a  deed  dated  ISTovem- 
ber  8,  1671,  from  the  heirs  of  John  Evance,  of  the  lands  in 
ITew  Haven  belonging  to  his  estate,  to  Thomas  Lake,  of  Boston, 
for  £70 ;  and  a  statement  that  the  sum  actually  received  by  the 
trustees  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  was  £412. 

These  copies  are  all  attested  by  Mr.  Jones  as  a  ^N'otary  Public. 
I  find  no  record  of  his  appointment  to  such  an  office  by  the 
Colony  of  ISTew  Haven'*^  or  of  Connecticut.  Probably  he  held 
it  at  London,  under  the  Commonwealth,  or  by  appointment 
from  the  Court  of  Faculties  of  the  x\rchbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  considered  that  it  adhered  to  him  wherever  he  might  live 
within  the  realm.'*'^ 

Governor  Jones  served  as  one  of  the  trustees  until  1695  and 

probably  resigned  his  office  March   1,   1695    (IT.   S.),  for  he 

attended  no  further  meetings.     He  was  then  over  seventy  and 

in  declining  health.'*^     He  lived,  however,  until  1706,  his  wife 

dying  a  few  months  later.     An  inscription  to  their  memory  was 

cut  on  her  father's  tombstone,  and  reads  thus : 

"T'  attend  you.  Sir,  under  these  framed  stones 
Are  come  your  honored  son  &  daughter  Jones 
On  each  hand  to  repose  their  weary  bones."  ^ 

John  Davenport  took  every  care  that  the  full  number  of  the 

seven  trustees  who  were  to  take  charge  of  the  School  should  be 

always  kept  up.     In  this  final  deed  of  gift,  executed  in  1668, 

he  provided  thus : 

"And  that  that  there  may  be  a  certain  and. orderly  succession  of  able 
and  fit  persons  to  manage  the  several  trusts  herein  before  mentioned  in  the 
room  or  place  of  any  of  the  said  committee,  or  trustees  before  named,  that 
shall  die  or  remove  his  or  their  dwelling  from  New  Haven  aforesaid,  the 

*"  New  Haven  appointed  one  notary  public,  Thomas  Fugill,  as  early  as 
1639. 

*"  Such  a  claim  was  made  in  Massachusetts  in  1720  by  Joseph  Marion, 
who  held  a  commission  issued  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  The 
General  Court,  however,  forbade  him  to  act  in  the  capacity.  It  had,  itself, 
appointed  notaries  public  as  early  as  1698.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proceedings, 
XLIII,  436,  7;  see  Opinion  of  the  Justices,  150  Massachusetts  Reports,  586. 

^^Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc,  4th  Series,  VIII,  311. 

«N.  H.  Col.  Hist.  Soc.  Papers,  III,  516. 


36  THE    HOPKISrS    GEAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    ISTEW    HAVEN 

said  committee,  or  the  major  part  of  them  surviving,  shall  immediately, 
or  at  furthest  within  three  months  after,  choose  such  other  person  or  per- 
sons of  known  integrity  and  faithfulness,  to  succeed  in  the  room  and  place 
of  any  such  person  or  persons  so  dying  or  removing  as  aforesaid,  that  the 
work  may  be  carried  on  (in  the  said  grammar  or  collegiate  school)  hereby 
committed  to  them,  that  so  learning  may  be  duly  encouraged  and  furthered 
therein,  in  the  training  up  of  such  hopeful  youth  as  in  time,  by  the  blessing 
of  God  upon  good  endeavors,  may  be  fitted  for  public  service  in  church  and 
commonwealth,  for  the  upholding  and  promoting  of  the  kingdom  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  these  parts  of  the  earth,  according  to  the  true  and 
sincere  desire  and  ends  of  the  aforesaid  Worthy  Donor  in  his  said  last  will 
and  testament  mentioned  and  expressed.  And  because  I  stand  under  an 
engagement  to  attend  the  will  of  the  said  donor  deceased,  that  his  ends  may 
be  attained  in  the  dispose  of  his  said  legacy,  if  the  said  committee  or  their 
successors  shall  find  the  said  ends  by  this  grant  not  attained  at  New 
Haven,  and  that  the  said  grammar  or  collegiate  school  hereby  endowed  and 
provided  for,  should  be  dissolved  and  wholly  cease,  I  do  obtest  them  by  the 
will  of  the  dead,  which  no  man  may  alter,  and  by  the  trust  committed  to 
me  and  them,  whereof  we  must  give  our  account  to  the  great  Jvidge  of  all, 
that  this  gift  of  the  said  Edward  Hopkins,  Esquire,  deceased,  be  by  them 
the  said  committee  wholly  transferred  and  disposed  of  elsewhere,  where  the 
said  ends  may  be  attained.*^ 

On  January  4,  1683,  •when  the  records  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  trustees  begin,  of  the  originally  appointed  seven  there  only 
survived.  Governor  Jones,  Governor  James  Bishop,  and  Deacon 
William  Peck,  and  they  chose  to  fill  two  of  the  vacancies  Gov- 
ernor Robert  Treat  and  Thomas  Trowbridge.  During  the  next 
few  years  Deacon  John  Punderson  and  Deacon  Chidsey  appear 
on  the  records  as  acting  trustees,  but  there  is  no  record  of  the 
election,  of  Deacon  Chidsey.  Deacon  Punderson  was  finally 
elected  in  January,  1689,  but  at  a  meeting  at  which  only  three 
of  the  original  trustees  were  present. ^"^ 

In  1695,  attention  seems  to  have  been  called  to  these  infor- 
malities, and  a  deed  was  executed,  in  presence  of  Deacon  Pun- 
derson as  a  witness,  by  Governor  Jones  and  Thomas  Trow- 
bridge, as  trustees,  appointing  Captain  Moses  Mansfield,  Lieu- 
tenant Abram  Dickerman,  Thomas  Trowbridge,  Jr.,  Sergeant 
Samuell  Allin,  Sergeant  John  Allin  and  Joseph  Moss,  as 
trustees,  and  granting  the  trust  estate  to  them  and  their  suc- 
cessors in  the  trust  "by  them  or  the  majority  of  them  dewly 

^Atwater,  Hist,  of  New  Haven,  I,  558, 
=0 1  MSS.  School  Records,  24. 


EAKLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  37 

chosen  &  appointed  from  tjme  to  tyme  forever,"  to  maintain  a 
Grammar  School  at  'Nev?  Haven  where  a  sufficient  preparation 
could  be  given  "for  y^  Colledge  either  at  Cambridge  or  else- 
where in  ISTew  England,  if  such  Academy  of  Learning  shall  or 
may  be  hereafter  erected  for  publique  vses."  ^^ 

It  is  probable  that  Governor  Jones,  in  preparing  this  instru- 
ment, had  in  mind  the  practice  of  the  benchers  in  the  Inns  of 
Court  of  his  native  city.  They  are  not  incorporated.  The  title 
to  their  valuable  lands  is  vested  in  a  certain  number  of  them,  to 
whom  it  has  been  conveyed  as  joint  trustees.  When  this  num- 
ber is  reduced  by  death  beyond  a  certain  limit,  the  survivors 
join  in  a  conveyance  to  some  dummy,  generally  their  steward 
or  butler,  who  thereupon  conveys  to  all  the  benchers  then  living, 
on  the  same  trusts.^^ 

In  subsequent  times,  the  trustees,  though  many  of  them  have 
been  able  lawyers,  have  not  thought  such  a  course  necessary. 
As  a  vacancy  has  occurred,  by  death  or  resignation,  the  sur- 
vivors have  filled  it,  agreeably  to  the  statutes  framed  by  Mr. 
Davenport.  In  like  manner,  and  by  like  authority,  in  1839 
they  filled  the  place  of  Bishop  Brownell  when,  on  the  transfer 
of  the  Episcopal  Divinity  School  from  ISTew  Haven  to  ISTew 
York,  he  had  removed  to  Hartford,  and  remained  there  for  years 
without  sending  in  a  resignation.  The  trustees  voted  that  his 
place  was  vacant  under  their  statutes,  and  appointed  another 
to  it. 

The  title  to  their  real  estate  has  been  deemed  to  be  in  them  as 
an  incorporated  body. 

They  have  for  a  long  period,  if  not  from  the  first,  acted  as  a 
corporatioUj  commonly  known  as  the  Hopkins  Committee  of 
Trustees,  or  popularly  as  the  Trustees  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar 
School.  They  have  and  use  a  corporate  seal.  "Whether  their 
corporate  capacity  came  by  grant  or  recognition  from  the 
Colony  of  ISTew  Haven,  or  the  government  of  the  Commonwealth 
before  the  Restoration,  or  from  the  crown  or  the  Colony  of  Con- 
necticut later,  their  historian  is  unable  to  state.     They  have 

"  Ibid.,  28. 

°-  Kyd  on  Corporations,  I,  7. 

215207 


88  THE    HOPKIXS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    XEW    HAVEN 

acted  for  time  immemorial  as  only  a  corporation  could  legiti- 
mately act,  and  that  is  said  to  be  the  legal  requisite  for  estab- 
lishing a  corporation  by  prescription.^^ 

The  minutes  of  the  meetings  of  the  trustees  begin  with  one 
held  January  4,  1683,  when  the  "Hopkins  Committee"  met  and 
"Agreed  y''  Ensigne  Munson  goe  on  w"'  y"  Grammar  Schoole  at 
'New  Haven  to  make  up  his  yeare  Currant,  &  his  allowance  be 
40^  pr  ann  as  formerly." 

"Alsoe  y*  tryall  be  made  of  y®  Sufficiency  of  y^  s"^  Ensigne 
Munson,  and  if  he  be  found  sufficient  to  institute  and  fit  hope- 
full  youth  for  y^  Colledge,  according  to  y®  Trust  Committed  to 
us,  that  then  he  goe  on  w*^  y*^  Schoole  and  have  ffifty  pounds  pr 
ann  and  for  y*^  next  ensuing  yeare,  viz.  20^  out  of  y®  found,  15^ 
of  y®  County  Court  out  of  y®  Customs  and  15^  out  of  y^  Colledge 
Estates,  Oyster-Shell  ffields  and  Eldred's  lot."  ^^ 

One  of  our  alumni,  Roger  Sherman  White,  Esq.  (H.  G.  S. 
1854),  of  this  city,  has  kindly  prepared  and  presented  to  the 
School  a  complete  statement,  from  the  town  records,  of  the  real 
estate  transactions  of  the  Trustees  from  the  beginning  of  the 
foundation. 

The  first  dates  back  to  April  12,  1682  (recorded  February 
27,  1683  (K  S.),  Vol.  I,  136).  William  Jones,  William 
Peck,  and  Thomas  Trowbridge  as  "Trustees  for  the  Grammar 
School  of  ISTew  Haven  .  .  .  for  themselves  and  successors  in  the 
said  trust,  with  consent  of  the  Townsmen  of  ISTew  Haven,"  grant 
to  a  number  of  persons,  owming  home  lots  adjacent  to  "the 
Oyster  Shell  Eield  now  lieing  in  Common  with  the  Quarter 
commonly  called  Mr.  Davenport's  Quarter"  ...  a  strip  five 
rods  wide  behind  the  rear  fences  of  the  several  grantees  extend- 
ing "to  the  bank  towards  the  Sea  or  Harbour,"  The  considera- 
tion was  that  the  grantees  should  fence  in  this  strip,  each  with 
his  own  home  lot,  and  maintain  such  fences  forever,  "the  said 
Oyster  Shell  Field  to  be  in  that  respect  hereafter  forever  fence 
free." 

The  use  of  the  Oyster  Shell  Field  had  been  made  over  by 
the  town,  in  compliance  with  Mr.   Davenport's  requirements, 

"Kent's  Commentaries,  II,  277. 

"  MSS.  Records,  H.  G.  S.  Trustees,  I,  14. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLA]N"D  39 

but  the  title  was  not  formally  transferred  to  the  Trustees  until 
1Y28.  It  lay  southeast  of  the  town  plot,  bordering  on  the  north 
upon  "Mr.  Davenport's  Quarter,"  and  bounded  on  the  west  by 
what  is  now  Olive  street,  and  on  the  north  by  the  extension  of 
Chapel  street. 

The  Eldred  lot,  which  had  been  promised  by  the  town  under 
the  same  circumstances,  was  partly  devoted  to  other  purposes. 
The  western  half,  on  September  25,  1685,  was  conveyed  by  the 
town  to  Rev.  James  Pierpont  as  part  of  his  "settlement"  as 
pastor  of  the  town  church.^^  He  married  a  daughter  of  John 
Davenport,  and  in  1693  became  the  owner,  through  her,  of  a 
lot  of  two  acres  and  a  quarter  facing  the  Green  on  Church  street, 
and  running  from  what  is  now  Court  street  to  a  point  probably 
about  on  the  north  line  of  the  Law  Chambers.^*"  Soon  after- 
wards. Deacon  William  Peck,  by  "order  of  the  Trustees  or  com- 
mittee for  the  College  and  School  estate  at  ISTew  Haven,"  and 
the  townsmen,  under  a  vote  of  the  town  passed  I^Tovember  4, 
1689,  made  an  exchange  of  lands  with  Mr.  Pierpont,^''^  by  which 
he  acquired  their  interests  in  the  remaining  half  of  the  Eldred 
lot,  and  the  School  and  town  received  title  to  an  acre  and  a  half, 
comprising  the  southern  part  of  the  Church  street  lot  already 
described,  bounded  west  on  the  Green.^^ 

On  ITovember  20,  1680,  the  town  had  granted  to  the  grammar 
school  a  "school  lot"  of  a  hundred  acres  in  the  third  division, 
and  at  a  meeting  of  the  proprietors  of  common  and  undivided 
lands,  in  1746,  it  was  voted  that  the  "Committee  of  the  Gram- 
mar School"  make  sale  of  it  at  public  auction.  They  did  so, 
but  the  purchaser,  Isaac  Brockett,  claimed  that  they  could  not 
convey  him  a  good  title  without  getting  authority  from  the 
General  Court.  In  order  "'fully  to  put  that  matter  out  of 
dispute  and  to  Remove  all  scruples,"  they  applied  to  the  Gen- 
eral Court  at  the  October  Session  in  1746,  for  a  law  empowering 
"said  Committee  or  the  major  part  of  them"  to  "make  and  exe- 

"  New  Haven  Land.  Records,  I,  a,  317. 
"« lUd.,  1,  h,  22. 

"  New  Haven  Land  Records,  I,  557. 

°'See  Map  of  New  Haven  in  1G41,  in  Atwater's  Hist,  of  New  Haven 
Colony. 


40  THE    HOPKIJNTS    GEAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    JSTEW    HAVEN 

cute  an  ample  and  authentick  Deed  or  Deeds  of  Conveyance  of 
the  premises  to  any  person  or  persons  who  have  or  may  purchase 
the  same."  All  the  seven  trustees  signed  this  petition.  The 
lower  house  voted  to  grant  it,  but  the  upper  house  refused  to 
concur,  probably  on  the  ground  that  they  had  the  authority 
already,  by  virtue  of  the  tovm  grant  to  their  predecessors  in 
office.^^  At  all  events,  the  trustees,  a  few  months  later^^ 
(Brockett  having  meanwhile  died),  received  the  stipulated 
price  from  his  heirs,  and  another  party  who  was  interested  with 
him  in  the  purchase,  and  gave  them  deeds  in  the  usual  form 
with  full  covenants  of  warranty. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  southeast 
corner  of  this  Church  street  lot  was  let  for  999  years  to  John 
Mix.  It  is  described  as  lying  "on  the  East  side  of  the  Green 
or  square  .  .  .  part  of  the  school  lot,  so  called  ..."  bounded 
southerly  on  Court  street  46  feet,  easterly  on  Orange  street  90 
feet,  northerly  on  said  school  lot,  and  westerly  on  land  of 
Hichard  Cutler  and  Joseph  Bradley,  reserving  an  annual  rent 
of  £6,  IS/.*^^  After  the  country  had  adopted  a  decimal 
standard,  this  was  estimated  as  equivalent  to  $23,  and  that 
amount  was  paid  until  May  15,  1861,  when  the  Trustees,  for 
the  gross  sum  of  $525,  released  and  quitclaimed  to  Enos  Eoot, 
assignee  of  John  j\Iix,  all  the  rents  thereafter  to  accrue  during 
the  rest  of  the  term,  It  will  be  obser\'ed  that  the  trustees  did 
not  convey  or  release  the  reversion.  This  lot  is  the  site  of  the 
Hotel  Davenport,  appropriately  so  named  after  the  chief 
trustee  under  Governor  Hopkins'  will.  Consequently,  on  May 
10,  A.  D.  2784,  after  the  lapse  of  only  eight  hundred  and 
seventy-four  years  more,  the  School  will  come  into  possession  of 
a  very  handsome  piece  of  business  property. 

In  1800,  leases  for  999  years,  for  gross  sums,  from  Decem- 
ber 1  of  that  year,  were  made  by  the  trustees,  of  twenty-five 
acres  of  meadow,  belonging  to  the  School,  in  what  had  then 

=' State  MSS.  Archives,  I  Colleges  and  Schools,  118,  119. 

""In  January,  1747   (N.  S.),  New  Haven  Land  Records,  XIII,  136,  137. 

°i  N.  H.  Land  Records,  Vol.  46,  p.  136. 


EABI.Y    GRAM]\rAE    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAISTD  41 

become  the  town  of  JSTorth  Haven,  but  until  1786  had  been  part 
of  ISTew  Haven.     £232  in  all  was  realized  from  this  source.^^ 

On  March  31,  1801,  they  (I^.  H.  Land  Eecords,  Vol.  52, 
407)  let  most  of  their  Church  street  lot  to  l^ew  Haven  County 
for  999  years.  The  lease  provides  that  "said  lot  is  estimated 
at  two  hundred  and  sixty  six  pounds,  two  shillings,  the  interest 
whereof  being  fifteen  pound,  nineteen  shillings,  and  four  pence 
per  annum  is  to  be  annually  paid  to  the  Treasurer  of  said  Hop- 
kins Committee  by  the  treasurer  of  said  County,  the  payment 
of  which  annual  interest  or  rent  is  to  be  secured  by  a  bond  to  be 
given  by  the  treasurer  of  said  County  to  the  Treasurer  of  sd 
Hopkins  Committee,  and  such  interest  or  rent  is  to  be  due  and 
payable  annually  until  sd  County  shall  pay  to  said  Hopkins 
Committee  the  full  sum  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  six  pounds 
and  two  shillings,  which  the  contracting  parties  have  agreed 
may  be  done  whenever  the  County  shall  choose  to  do  the  same." 

Receipt  of  such  a  bond  is  acknowledged  to  their  full  satisfac- 
tion, and  "in  consideration  thereof"  and  to  carry  their  before 
recited  "agreement  into  effect,"  the  Committee  let  the  land  to 
the  County  "for  the  full  term  of  nine  hundred  and  ninety  nine 
years  from"  March  31,  1801,  with  covenants  for  quiet  enjoy- 
ment during  the  whole  term  aforesaid,  and  that  they  would 
"resign  and  deliver  up  to  the  treasurer  of  said  County  of  ISTew 
Haven  the  bond  which  we  have  this  day  received  for  security 
of  the  annual  rent,  whenever  said  County  shall  pay  to  us  or  our 
successors  the  sum  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  and  two 
shillings." 

The  County  proceeded  to  put  up  a  jail  on  this  lot.  It  has 
since  been  replaced  by  the  City  Hall. 

On  March  22,  1802,  the  rest  of  the  Church  street  lot,  north 
of  the  jail,  was  let  for  999  years  (Vol.  52,  419),  for  the  gross 
sum  of  $140.58,  no  rent  being  reserved.  This  is  the  lot  now 
occupied  by  the  Court  House. 

Our  successors,  therefore,  who  will  gather  to  celebrate  the 
eleven  hundred  and  fortieth  anniversary  of  the  School  in  June, 

"=  The  lessees  were  Gideon  Todd,  Joshua  Barnes,  John  Barnet,  Nathaniel 
Dayton  and  Harman  Robinson;    see  Thorpe,  North  Haven  Annals,  181. 


42  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

A.  D.  2800,  may  find  it  installed  in  the  present  City  Hall ;  but 
it  cannot  use  the  County  Court  House  as  a  dormitory  or 
Rector's  residence  before  March  22  in  the  following  year. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century  a  crown  lease  made  in 
England  by  Alfred  the  Great  for  999  years  came  to  an  end,  and 
the  crown  took  quiet  possession.  Let  us  hope  that  the  Hopkins 
Grammar  School,  which  has  already  outlived  one  English 
dynasty,  may  round  out  her  millennium  in  the  year  2660,  and 
after  a  century  or  two  more  of  useful  activity,  enter  on  her 
inheritance  of  the  ISTorth  Haven  meadows,  and  of  well-improved 
central  property  in  a  city  that  may  then  itself,  not  improbably, 
contain  a  million  inhabitants. 

Meanwhile  her  ownership  in  real  estate  in  possession  extends 
only  to  her  school  building  and  grounds,  and  to  the  Pratt  Field 
for  athletic  sports. 

The  title  to  the  Hopkins  House,  the  dormitory  in  Chapel 
street,  is  in  an  auxiliary  corporation  in  which  the  trustees  have 
only  a  small  stock  interest,  presented  to  them  by  some  of  the 
friends  of  the  School,  who  subscribed  for  it  to  increase  her 
facilities  for  receiving  boys  from  out  of  town. 

The  school  was  at  first  kept  in  the  town  schoolhouse,  on  the 
Green.  This  was  situated  nearly  opposite  the  Pierpont 
house.*^^  In  1723  another  schoolhouse  was  put  up  on  the  Green, 
for  the  exclusive  use  of  the  grammar  school.  This  was  placed 
near  College  street,  and  between  that  and  the  church,  which 
stood  in  the  center  of  the  square.'''*  It  is  shown  on  the  Wads- 
worth  map  of  ISTew  Haven  in  1748,  as  standing  next  to  the  jail, 
opposite  what  is  now  Famam  Hall. 

It  is  certain  that  in  1756  a  brick  schoolhouse  was  built  by  the 
trustees,  in  which  the  grammar  school  was  kept  until  1801,  but 
where  it  was  placed  is  not  wholly  clear.  The  late  John  W. 
Barber,  who  was  born  in  1798,  states  in  his  ''History  and  Anti- 
quities of  ISTew  Haven"  (p.  51),  that  the  first  house  built  for 
the  school  "was  on  the  East  side  of  Church  street,  fronting  the 

•=^  Blake,  Chronicles  of  New  Haven  Green,  17,  182. 
^*Ibid.,  20;    Stiles,  Literary  Diary,  III,  16,  17. 


EARLY    ORAMMAK    SCHOOLS    OF    ]N'EW    ENGLAND  43 

public  square,  a  little  South  of  the  County  House."  This  is 
corroborated  by  deeds  and  leases  on  record,  which  show  that  as 
early  as  1753  a  small  lot  on  Church  street  was  kept  by  the 
trustees  with  the  purpose  of  putting  a  schoolhouse  there.^^  On 
the  other  hand,  Mr.  Henry  T.  Blake,  in  his  "Chronicles  of  ISTew 
Haven  Green"  (pp.  20,  213),  is  of  opinion  that  the  grammar 
school  was  kept  until  1801  in  a  brick  schoolhouse  on  the  Green, 
nearly  opposite  the  Pierpont  lot,  while  Dr.  Franklin  B.  Dexter, 
in  his  "j^ew  Haven  in  1784"  (p.  58),  says  that  it  was  probably 
housed  in  the  County  building  on  the  other  (southerly)  side  of 
the  Green,  or  in  a  small  building  near  it.  The  MSS.  records 
of  the  School,  while  not  explicit,  seem  to  me  to  confirm  Mr. 
Barber's  statement.  The  schoolhouse  was  probably  a  very 
indifferent  one,  for  two  of  the  Rectors  toward  the  close  of  the 
century  kept  the  school  either  in  their  own  houses,  or  in  build- 
ings under  their  private  control. 

In  1801,  the  school  was  transferred  to  the  wooden  schoolhouse 
built  at  a  cost  of  £300,  on  a  lot  purchased  for  the  purpose,  by 
the  trustees,  on  the  southwest  corner  of  Temple  and  Crown 
streets,  which  is  now  the  site  of  the  club  house  of  the  Young 
Men's  Eepublican  Club.  This  was  a  modest  two-story  build- 
ing, twenty^wo  feet  wide  by.  thirty-two  feet  deep,  with  an  ample 
playground  in  the  rear.*^^  It  was  removed  in  1840  to  a  lot  then 
owned  by  the  School  on  Grove  street,  where  it  still  stands. 

In  that  year  possession  was  taken  of  the  present  schoolhouse 
at  the  comer  of  High  and  Wall  streets.  This  site  was  pur- 
chased and  the  original  building  erected,  forming  the  center 
of  the  present  edifice,  by  the  aid  of  funds  advanced  temporarily 
by  several  of  the  trustees.  It  was  enlarged  by  a  rear  addition, 
at  a  cost  of  about  $4,000,  in  1867,  and  by  a  new  front,  in  1873, 
at  a  cost  of  nearly  $14,000.  The  CroAvn  street  lot,  which  had 
cost  less  than  $500,  brought  $2,500. 

In  1790,  Abraham  Bishop  (H.  G.  S.  1774),  an  enterprising 
young  lawyer  of  ISTew  Haven,  who  had  not  long  since  returned 
from  an  extensive  tour  in  Europe,  full  of  the  ideas  which  led 

«« See  Stiles,  Map  of  New  Haven  in  1775,  Literary  Diary,  II,  275. 
""L.  W.  Fitch,  The  Hopkinsonian  for  IS'IO,  84. 


44  THE    HOPKINS    GKAMMAK    SCHOOL    OF    KEW    HAVEN 

to  the  overtlirow  there  of  the  ancient  foundations  of  society, 
launched  a  scheme  for  a  graded  school  in  the  city,  in  which  the 
Hopkins  Grammar  School  was  to  be  substantially  merged.  He 
was  to  be  its  director.  His  father,  Judge  Samuel  Bishop,  had 
recently  become  one  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Trustees, 
and  while  the  records  of  their  proceedings  contain  no  mention 
of  any  vote  on  the  subject,  the  names  of  all  of  them,  as  "mem- 
bers of  the  Hopkins  Committee,"  were  signed,  presumably  with 
their  consent,  to  the  announcements  of  the  new  institution.  It 
was  to  be  styled  the  Orleans  Academy.  There  were  to  be  three 
separate  departments,  each  in  a  room  of  its  own,  of  which  one 
was  for  instniction  in  Greek  and  Latin,  but  on  Saturday  fore- 
noon the  Greek  and  Latin  students  were  to  go  into  the  depart- 
ment of  writing  and  arithmetic  for  instruction  in  those 
branches.  The  ministers  of  the  four  churches  in  the  city  and 
four  laymen  from  each  of  the  ecclesiastical  societies  were  to  be 
the  visitors  of  the  school.  Among  those  appointed  to  this 
office  were  'four  of  the  trustees  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School, 
and  it  was  part  of  the  announced  plan  that  "the  school  for 
instruction  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  will  in  future  be 
kept  under  the  particular  influence  and  appointment  of"  the 
entire  Hopkins  Committee. 

Boys  and  girls  were  not  to  be  instructed  together.  A  room 
in  the  Sandeman  meeting-house  was  opened  "for  the  reception 
of  young  misses  and  of  boys  under  six  years  of  age  to  be 
instructed  by  the  Masters"  of  the  Academy,  and  the  "misses" 
were  also  to  be  taught  "needle  work  of  every  kind"  by  a  com- 
petent mistress- 
There  is  a  painful  precision  of  detail  in  the  prescribed 
scheme,  which  testified  to  its  French  origin.  It  is  probable  that 
it  was  not  put  in  serious  operation.  The  city  newspaper  was 
full  of  it  in  the  spring  of  1790  and  silent  ever  after.  An 
advertisement  in  the  fall  by  a  Mr.  Russ,  of  a  school  for  young 
misses  and  boys  in  the  Sandeman  meeting-house,  indicates  that 
if  the  Orleans  Academy  ever  secured  a  foothold  there,  it  had 
been  very  soon  abandoned.^'^     Abraham  Bishop's  name  appears 

"Atwater's  Hist,  of  New  Haven,   158;    Dexter,  Mass.  Hist.   Soc.   Proc, 
XIX,  191. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    ^^EW    EjN'GLAXD  45 

on  the  list  of  the  Eectors  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  for 
1790,  and  he  received  from  the  Trustees,  during  the  year  nm- 
ning  from  March,  1789,  to  March,  1790,  the  sum  of  £21,  8s,  5d, 
while  the  preceding  Kector,  Jared  Mansfield,  received  £30,  14s, 
SVsd. 

In  the  years  next  follovring,  Mr.  Mansfield  resumed  sole 
charge,  and  received  the  full  salary,  which  in  the  year  ending 
in  March,  1791,  was  £65,  5s  and  8d,  and  in  that  ending  in 
March,  1792,  was  £72,  5i/od.  Probably  Mr.  Mansfield  stepped 
aside  entirely  for  a  few  months  in  favor  of  Mr.  Bishop,  and  the 
latter,  on  finding  that  the  Orleans  Academy  was  taking  no  root, 
was  glad  to  retire.  We  know  that  he  was  living  in  Boston  the 
next  year,  and  beginning  the  series  of  ephemeral  publications 
which  made  him  conspicuous  among  the  'New  England  pam- 
phleteers of  a  centuiy  ago. 

Mr.  Bishop  kept  the  School  in  a  building  belonging  to  his 
father,  and  Mr.  Mansfield  kept  it  in  his  o^vn  house. 

Mr.  Bishop's  father  had  allowed  him  to  turn  a  building  which 
he  owned  into  a  theatre,  and  it  is  probable  that  he  made  use  of 
this  to  teach  in,  for  his  announcements  of  the  Orleans  Academy 
mention  a  gallery  from  which  visitors  could  view  the  scholars 
in  the  reading  apartment,  every  Saturday  morning,  when  they 
would  be  receiving  instruction  in  reading  and  ethics.^^ 

It  is  some  evidence  of  his  ability  as  a  teacher  that  President 
Stiles  in  May,  1790,  placed  in  the  School  while  it  was  in  his 
hands,  two  young  South  Carolinians  who  had  been  sent  here  to 
enter  Yale,  and  were  found  in  need  of  further  preparation.^^ 

The  school  hours,  in  old  times,  were  long  and  vacations  short. 
The  Trustees'  records  show  that  on  ISTovember  13,  1729,  Daniel 
Munson  was  employed  "to  keep  the  grammer  school  for  on  year 
to  begin  22""^  ]N"ovember,  and  to  keep  about  7  hours  in  the  day 
in  the  winter  season,  and  about  8  hours  in  the  summer  season, 
in  each  day  and  not  to  exceed  twelve  j^lay  days  in  the  year; 
and  for  his  reward  he  is  to  have  the  mony  raysed  on  the 
schollers  heads,  and  the  Kents  of  the  mony  and  of  the  land  & 

"Atwater,  Hist,  of  New  Haven,  159;    Stiles,  Literary  Diary,  III,  336; 
Bacon,  Hist.  Discourse,  1860,  61. 
«» Stiles,  Literary  Diary,  III,  395. 


46  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

Medow  of  this  present  year."     The  next  year  fourteen  play 
days  were  allowed. 

In  1776  provision  was  made  for  two  vacations  of  a  week 
each,  one  at  the  Yale  Commencement,  and  the  other  on  the 
annual  Election  Day,  and  it  was  ordered  that  the  "master  is  not 
to  indulge  the  Schollars  with  Liberty  of  playing  on  Wednesdays 
in  the  afternoon."  '''^ 

By  1812,  the  vacation  had  become  four  weeks  long,  and  school 
might  be  dismissed  "on  general  trainings." 

The  next  year  an  age  rule  for  admission  was  adopted.  N^o 
boy  was  thereafter  to  be  allowed  to  enter  who  was  less  than  nine 
years  old,  and  none  "except  Latin  and  Greek  scholars." 

In  1822,  the  year  was  first  divided  into  three  terms,  each  to 
conclude  with  an  examination  on  the  studies  pursued. 

The  earliest  publication  of  the  School,  official  or  unofficial, 
was  the  Boys'  Saturday  Journal,  composed  and  set  up  by  two 
of  the  students,  Samuel  J.  M.  Merwin,  and  Lucius  W.  Fitch, 
in  1831-32.     It  ran  to  its  twelfth  number. 

The  first  printed  catalogue,  also  prepared  by  the  students, 
was  published  in  1846.  Since  1851,  the  catalogues  have  been 
official.  Of  student  periodicals  there  have  been  The  Critic, 
started  in  1871,  and  ever  since  maintained;  The  Annual,  in 
1873;  The  Tablet,  in  1875;  The  Triangle,  in  1886;  The 
Lumen  Literarum,  in  1887 ;  The  Fence,  in  1892,  and  The 
Hopkinsonian,  in  1896. 

In  1849,  a  debating  club,  known  as  Hopkins  Grammar  School 
Debating  Society,  was  organized  by  some  of  the  students  and 
held  its  meetings  in  the  schoolhouse.  In  1851  its  name  was 
changed  to  "The  Polymnian  Society,"  which  published  its 
Constitution,  and  a  poem  delivered  before  it  in  January  of  that 
year  by  George  Blagden  Bacon  (afterwards,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bacon 
of  Orange,  N".  J.),  one  of  its  members,  making  in  all  a  twelve- 
page  pamphlet. 

A  School  Glee  Club  has  been  maintained  for  many  years, 
under  instruction  furnished  by  the  trustees. 

A  baseball  nine  was  organized  in  1860,  and  a  football  team 
in  1873. 
^»MSS.  School  Records,  III,  13. 


EARLY  GRAMMAR  SCHOOLS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND       4T 

The  financial  history  of  this  foundation  illustrates  how  much 
can  be  done  with  a  little  money,  if  carefully  husbanded  and 
well  applied. 

The  original  sum  received  from  the  trustees  under  the  Hop- 
kins will  was  £412. 

Of  this,  £140  was  invested,  in  1672,  in  purchasing  from 
Thomas  Lake  the  lands  in  ISTew  Haven  formerly  owned  by  John 
Evance,  deceased.  Among  these  was  a  house  lot  of  about  three 
acres,  on  the  comer  of  Elm  and  College  streets,  comprising  what 
is  now  the  northern  third  of  the  old  College  Campus.  It  was  a 
good  purchase,  and  sales  of  parts  brought  in  £134  by  1700. 

The  balance  of  the  fund  was  at  first  lent  on  personal  notes  or 
bonds,  sometimes  secured  by  mortgage,  and  sometimes  not.  On 
March  1,  1684,  the  total  assets  had  risen  in  value  to  £486.  It 
was  not  always  easy  to  invest  it  thus  in  'New  Haven,  and  some 
of  the  money  was  put  out  in  Salem  and  Boston.  Governor 
Stoughton  of  Boston  received,  in  1693,  a  remittance  of  £70  to 
lend  in  this  manner  at  five  or  six  per  cent.'^^ 

The  Oyster  Shell  Field  and  the  Eldred  lot,  under  the  votes 
of  the  town  already  mentioned,  were  also  sources  of  income.  A 
part  of  the  field,  containing  between  thirty  and  forty  acres, 
brought  in  1684  a  rent  of  £3  a  year.'''- 

In  1690,  the  General  Court  of  the  Colony  of  Connecticut, 
"considering  the  necessity  and  great  advantage  of  good  litera- 
ture," ordered  that  there  should  be  "two  free  schooles  kept  and 
mayntayned  in  this  Colony,  for  the  teaching  of  all  such  children 
as  shall  com  there,  after  they  can  first  read  the  psalter,  to  teach 
such  reading,  writeing,  arithmetic,  the  Lattin  and  Greek 
tongues,  the  one  at  Hartford,  the  other  at  I^ew  Hauen,  the  mas- 
ters whereof  shall  be  chosen  by  the  magistrates  aud  ministers  of 
the  sayd  county,  and  shall  be  inspected  and  agayn  displaced  by 
them  if  they  see  cause,  and  that  each  of  the  sayd  masters  shall 
haue  annually  for  the  same  the  sum  of  sixty  powuds  in  country 
pay,  thirty  powuds  of  it  to  be  payd  'out  (of  the)  cnuutry  treas- 
ury, the  other  thirty  to  be  payd  in  the  schoole  revenue  giuen  by. 

"  MSS.  School  Records,  I,  27. 
"MSS.  School  Records,  I,  22. 


■48  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMxVK    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

perticular  persons,  or  to  be  giueii  to  that  use,  so  far  as  it  will 
extend,  and  the  rest  to  be  payd  by  the  respectiue  townes  of  Hart- 
ford and  New  Hauen,"  '^^ 

Mrs.  Hopkins  died  December  10,  1699/^  Two  suits  were 
brought  in  the  CJourt  of  Chancery  at  London  to  compel  the  pay- 
ment of  the  £500,  of  which  she  had  had  the  life  use,  to  the  pur- 
poses provided  in  her  husband's  will.  One  suit  was  by  the 
Attorney-General  and  the  other  by  Harvard  College.  They 
dragged  along  in  true  "Bleak  House"  fashion  until  1713.  In 
October,  1711,  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Trustees  executed 
a  power  of  attorney  authorizing  Jeremiah  Dummer,  then  the 
agent  of  the  Colony  at  London,  to  endeavor  to  enforce  their 
rights,  by  inten'ening  in  the  litigation,  but  he  wrote  them 
in  1712  that  he  had  been  unsuccessful.  The  final  decree 
appointed  twenty-one  persons  as  trustees  of  the  fund ;  directing 
them  to  invest  it  in  land  and  pay  one-fourth  of  the  income  to 
the  Grammar  School  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  and  the 
balance  in  aid  of  students  of  divinity  at  Harvard  College.  The 
total  sum  coming  to  Massachusetts  under  this  trust  was  received 
in  1715  and  amounted,  including  interest  from  1700,  to  over 
£1,250. 

At  this  period  the  income  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School 
at  New  Haven  exceeded  its  expenses  so  far  that,  in  1713,  the 
trustees  voted  to  give  the  town  £15  for  use  in  its  common  or 
primary  schools. "^^ 

This  surplus  was  due  to  receipts  from  the  Colony,  which 
required  not  only  the  maintenance  of  a  grammar  school  where 
boys  could  be  "^fitted  for  the  Vniversity"  in  every  town  of  a 
hundred  families,"*^  but  by  its  Act  of  1690  made  annual  appro- 
priations for  that  purpose  for  the  benefit  of  Hartford  and  New 

"Col.  Rec.  of  Conn.,  1689-1706,  31 ;  State  MSS.  Archives,  I  Colleges  and 
Schools,  7. 

~*  Barnard,  Am.  Journal  of  Education,  IV,  684.  But  cf.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  VI,  336. 

"MSS.  School  Rec,  II,  11.  Cf.  Blake,  Chronicles  of  New  Haven  Green, 
194. 

'^  Col.  Records  of  Conn.,  Code  of  1650,  555.  Massachusetts  had  taken 
similar  action  in  1647. 


EAKI.Y    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    KEW    ENGLAND  49 

Haven,  The  Hopkins  Grammar  School  Trustees  were  receiv- 
ing in  this  way  between  £40  and  £50  a  year.  ISTew  Haven  had 
also  in  1672  been  granted  by  the  Colony  600  acres  of  land  "to 
be  taken  np  where  it  may  not  prejudice  any  former  grant, 
which  sayd  land  shall  be  and  belong  to  it  .  .  .  for  euer,  to  be 
improued  in  the  best  manner  that  may  be  for  the  benefit  of  a 
grammer  schoule  in  .  ,  .  the  to^vn  .  .  .  and  to  no  other  use  or 
end  whatsoever."  '^'^  This  action  had  been  taken  in  consequence 
of  a  petition  preferred  early  in  1672  to  the  Governor  and 
Council  by  "y®  Trustees  for  y^  Collegiatt  or  Grammar  Schoole 
att  l!^ew  Haven,"  asking  their  favorable  influence  in  the  General 
Court  for  such  public  grants  in  aid  of  Governor  Hopkins' 
bequest  to  them  as  would  "help  for  better  maintenance  of  an 
able  and  fit  man  to  instruct  youth  in  y^  3  Learned  Languages," 
by  which  means  learning,  now  languishing  there,  might  be 
revived."^^ 

"Col.  Rec.  of  Conn.,  II,  176;    Steiner,  Hist,  of  Education  in  Conn.,  28. 

'*This  petition  is  on  file  in  the  MSS.  Archives  of  the  State  (1  Colleges 
and  Schools,  5)   and  reads  as  follows: 

"To  the  honoWe  John  Winthrop  Esqr  Govr  And  to  the  worp^i  the 
Assistants  of  his  Majties  Colony  of  Connecticut 

"The  humble  petition  of  ye  Trustees  for  ye  Collegiatt  or  Grammar 
Sehoele  att  New  Haven  Showeth 

"That  may  yeares  since  the  worpU  Edw<i  Hopkins  Esqr  upon  the  Motion  of 
ye  honoed  Theophilus  Eaton  Esqr  then  Gov  of  New  Haven  &  of  the  Rever- 
end Mr  John  Davenport  then  Pastor  of  N.  Haven  Church  wtb  some  others 
Did  for  ye  furtherance  of  a  Colledge  or  Collegiatt  schoole  att  N.  Haven 
afores<i  &  for  ys  encouragemt  of  Learning  in  those  pts  Give  and  bequeath 
by  his  last  Will  &  testam*  a  Considerable  pt  of  his  Estate  in  New  England 
to  ye  gd  Mr  Davenport  by  an  authentick  lustrum*  under  his  hand  &  seale 
and  settle  about  4001  of  ye  sd  Estate  upon  N.  Haven  aforesd  in  order  to 
such  a  Collegiatt  &  Grammar  Schoole  there  towards  the  maintenance 
thereof,  And  to  wch  use  also  certaine  Lands  att  New  Haven  were  sett  apart. 

"May  it  therefore  please  yor  worps  by  yo^  favourable  Influence  to  be  a 
meanes  &  instrument  att  wch  ye  honoed  Genii  Court,  now  att  hand  for 
theire  Addition  of  such  further  encouragemt  to  ye  sd  foundation  already 
layd  of  a  Colledge  or  Collegiatt  Schoole  at  N.  Haven  as  above  either  by  ye 
grant  of  some  Annuity  or  other  help  for  better  maintenance  of  an  able  & 
fit  man  to  instruct  youth  in  ye  3  Learned  Languages  Latin  Greek  &  Hebrew 
according  to  ye  true  intent  of  ye  sd  worthy  Donor  ]\i;r  Hopkins  and  ye  trust 
Comitted  to  ye  sd  Trustees  as  ye  wisdom  of  ye  sd  Gen'i  Court  shall  think 
best  For  as  much  as  for  want  of  due  encouragemt  in  ye  prmisses,  and  ye 
Charge  of  maintaining  youth   from   those   pts   at  Cambridge   Collegge  by 


50  THE    HOPKINS    GKAMMAE    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

In  the  early  days  of  the  School,  the  tnistees  had  occasionally 
appro] )riated  from  its  fnnds  for  the  support  and  education  of 
particular  boys  while  at  college  at  Harvard.  One  of  those  thus 
aided  was  the  third  John  Davenport,  a  grandson  of  the  first,  and 
another  was  John  Jones,  a  grandson  of  Governor  Jones,  who 
received  a  double  portion,  ''he  being  a  Kinsman  and  Eelation 
by  affinity"  to  Governor  Hopkins.^^ 

This  reduced  the  personal  estate  in  their  hands,  and  it  was 
further  depleted  by  additional  investments  in  real  estate,  until 
in  1717  the  notes  and  bonds  amounted  to  only  about  £210. 

There  were  also  rents  of  about  £7,  which  came  in  from  the 
Oyster  Shell  Field,  twenty  acres  of  meadow,  and  a  lot  on 
Church  street,  comprising  the  present  City  Hall. 

Three  years  later  (December  2(3,  1720)  the  town  voted  to  aid 
the  trustees  by  a  grant  of  £6  a  year. 

Through  the  action  of  the  committee  of  the  proprietors  of 
common  and  undivided  lands,  in  each  new  "division"  of  the 
common  lands  between  the  proprietors  in  severalty  a  lot  was  set 
apart  for  the  grammar  school  and  put  then  "into  the  hands  of 
the  Committee  of  said  School,  to  be  for  the  use  thereof  forever, 
which  Committee  is  commonly  called  and  known  by  the  name 
of  Hopkins  Committee."  Sales  from  these  and  other  lands 
made  in  1741  brought  in  about  £132,  and  in  1746  there  was  a 
further  sale  at  auction  of  the  "school  lot"  of  over  a  hundred 
acres  in  the  "third  division,"  which  brought  over  £64, 

By  these  means  in  1748  the  nominal  amount  of  the  bonds 
and  notes  belonging  to  the  trust  had  risen  to  £1,711.  These 
were  the  days  of  paper  money  and  forced  currency,  and  the 

Reason  of  ye  Distance  and  difficulty  of  making  suitable  pay  being  soe  great 
Parents  are  generally  Discouraged  as  not  able  to  give  theire  Children  such 
education  as  might  fit  them  for  publige  usefullnes  in  Church  &  Comon- 
wealth  And  by  ye  means  Learning  (a  gr*  blessing  in  its  selfe)  Languish- 
ing among  us  more  &  more  wch  being  Revived  by  such  Countenance  & 
encouranemt  from  Yo'  Selves  and  the  s<i  Autority  the  Rising  Generacon 
will  have  cause  to  Call  yo"  Blessed. 

"And  yor  pete's  shall  pray  &c 

"Wm  Jones  James  Bishop  Mathew  Gilbert  William  Peck 

Roger  Ailing" 

"  1687,  MSS.  School  Rec,  I,  16. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    XEW    EXGLAND  51 

estimate  by  no  means  represents  what  they  were  really  worth. 
By  1754  a  pound  in  colony  bills  was  only  worth  one  shilling 
and  sixjDence  in  hard  money.^*^ 

In  1750,  by  the  joint  action  of  the  town,  through  the  pro- 
prietors' committee,  and  the  trustees,  a  special  committee  was 
appointed  with  authority  to  sell  the  Oyster  Shell  Field, 
Should  it  sell  for  more  than  necessary  to  maintain  the  grammar 
school  ''honorably,"  then  the  surplus  was  to  go  to  the  English 
schools  of  the  town,  provided  that  "the  Hopkins  School  Com- 
mittee be  the  only  Judges  of  a  Competency  for  an  Honourable 
Maintenance  of  said  School  agreeable  to  the  Original  Design  of 
it."  ^^  It  finally  brought  what  was  estimated  at  4,520  ounces 
of  silver. 

The  original  teiTQs  of  sale  were  that  purchasers  might  give 
back  mortgages  to  the  Hopkins  Committee  of  Trustees  for  the 
entire  price.  The  field  was  mapped  out  into  building  lots,  each 
with  its  number,  and  many  were  bought  on  speculation,  by 
those  who  were  unable  to  meet  their  obligations  when  the  day 
of  payment  arrived.  The  result  was  that  most  of  the  sales 
came  to  nothing,  a  reconveyance  from  the  purchasers  being- 
accepted  in  settlement.^^  A  few  years  later  these  lots  were  put 
on  the  market  again,  and  with  better  success.  It  is  difficult  to 
state  with  any  exactness  the  amount  thus  realized,  because  the 
payments  were  mostly  made  in  paper  money  of  varying  value. 
One  of  the  earliest  sales,  for  instance,  was  for  £426  ''current 
money  of  the  Old  Tenor."  Three  pounds  of  such  money  was 
worth,  in  1749,  only  one  ounce  of  silver,  and  by  1751  the 
Colony  of  Connecticut  had  put  out  £340,218  of  it.^^^  Probably 
this  sale  for  £426  meant  a  price  of  not  more  than  a  hundred 
ounces  of  silver. 

The  sales  from  the  Oyster  Shell  Field  were  not  entirely  com- 
pleted until  1803,  when  the  last  lot  brought  $250. 

«•  Bronson,  Papers,  N.  H.  Col.  Hist.  Soc,  III,  334. 
"  MSS.  School  Rec,  I,  53. 

«=N.  H.  Land  Records,  XX,  113,  et  seq.;   XXII,  355. 

^Bronson,  Connecticut  Currency,  N.  H.  Hist.  Soc.  Papers,  I.  Part  2,  65, 
67. 


52  THE    PIOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN" 

Of  part  of  the  avails  good  use  was  promptly  made,  by  erecting 
a  new  scboolhoiise.  It  was  built  in  1755,  of  brick,  at  a  cost  of 
£1,112,  in  paper  money. 

In  1760,  the  school  inventory  was  taken,  both  in  paper  money 
and  in  ounces  of  silver.  There  were  bonds  and  notes  calling 
for  1,270  ounces,  and  others  amounting  to  £179  in  "lawful 
money." 

The  total  income  was  then  £38. 

The  next  year  the  bonds  and  notes  were  estimated  at  £706, 
and  in  1764  at  £819.  In  1784  the  estimate  was  £1,107,  and 
in  1786  £1,478. 

The  trustees  made  a  small  investment  in  Continental  securi- 
ties during  the  Revolutionary  War. 

Their  inventory  of  personal  property  taken  in  March,  1789, 

is  as  follows : 

Notes,  bonds  and  mortgages   £796-1  ls-7d 

Bad  or  doubtful  notes   £  70-41s-6d 

Connecticut,    Massachusetts    and    Rhode    Island 

bills    109-  8s-7d 

£181-10s-ld 

£978-  ls-8d 
Add  Continental  securities   $800.00 

These  funds  produced  an  income  during  the  following  year 
of  £47-15s.  Rents  added  £15-15s-9d;  thus  making  the  total 
yield  from  productive  property  over  £63. 

The  personal  estate  of  the  trustees  was  now  inventoried  at 
£569,  and  in  1808  it  had  risen  to  £622,  or  in  dollars,  in  which 
it  was  appraised  for  the  fir&t  time,  $2,872.15. 

Out  of  this,  shares  in  the  Hartford  Bank  were  purchased 
that  year,  of  the  par  value  of  $2,400,  which  have  ever  since  been 
held.  Its  charter,  by  an  amendment  made  in  1807,  required  it 
to  receive  subscriptions  at  par  from  any  school  or  other  charit- 
able corporation,  subject  to  the  right  to  withdraw  whatever  they 
should  pay  in  upon  their  subscriptions  at  any  time  on  giving 
six  months'  notice.  These  very  favorable  terms  made  the 
investment  a  highly  desirable  one,  as  the  bank  was  well  estab- 
lished and  in  a  sound  condition.^* 

**  Woodward,  One  Hundred  Years  of  the  Hartford  Bank,  86. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    iVEW    EIS^GLAISTD  53 

The  funds  of  the  trust  on  February  7,  1812,  were  as  follows: 

6  shares  Hartford  Bank  of  $400  each   $2,400.00 

Loan  Office  certificate,  1791,  6%    $130.48 

"        "       65.24 

3%    93.94        289.66 

Notes  of  individuals 587.17 

$3,276.83 
Also  bad  notes,  &c.,  $281.67. 

Rents  were  collected  annually  of  $100. 

A  new  bank  was  organized  in  ISTew  Haven  in  1811.  It  was 
called  the  Eagle  Bank,  and  commanded  fully  the  public  confi- 
dence for  fourteen  years.  Between  1814  and  1821,  the  trus- 
tees invested  from  time  to  time  in  its  stock  at  par,  until  they 
had  twenty-five  shares.  For  a  time  all  went  well,  but  in  1825 
it  failed  totally.  A  million  and  a  half  had,  it  seemed,  been 
sunk,  and  this  investment  of  the  School  was  totally  lost.^^ 

In  1818  the  income  of  the  trust  had  been  $582.  In  1823  the 
Eagle  Bank  dividends  alone  amounted  to  $193. 

The  School  inventory  of  its  personal  estate  on  March  20, 
1824,  was  this : 

24  shares  Hartford   Bank   $2,400.00 

25  shares  Eagle   Bank   2,500.00 

Notes    501.46 

Cash     93.71 

$5,495.17 

It  ovsmed  also  its  school  lot  on  Crown  street  and  received  rents 
of  $71. 

The  failure  of  the  Eagle  Bank,  during  the  following  year, 
entirely  wiped  out  the  item  of  $2,500.  In  1833,  the  income  of 
the  trust  was  only  $293.07. 

Six  years  later  the  present  school  lot  was  purchased,  and  a 
building  erected  by  1840,  which  is  now  the  central  portion  of 
the  present  schoolhouse.  This  left  in  the  hands  of  the  trustees, 
in  personal  property,  only  the  Hartford  Bank  stock  and  $500 
in  notes.  Besides  the  new  schoolhouse  and  lot,  they  o^vned 
three  lots  of  land,  to  one  of  which  (on  Grove  street,  opposite 

^'Atwater,  Hist,  of  New  Haven,  335. 


54  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

the  cemetery)  thev  liad  removed  the  old  school  house.  It  is 
still  standing  there. 

In  1850  the  total  income  from  investments  was  $460;  in 
1851,  $595;  in  1859,  $553;  in  1864,  $371.50.  The  debts  for 
building  had  now  been  paid  off,  and  the  trustees  began  to  invest 
again.  In  1866  the  rear  of  the  old  Church  street  lot,  fronting 
on  Orange  street,  in  the  rear  of  the  City  Hall,  was  sold  for 
$10,500,  the  proceeds  going  ultimately  into  the  enlargement  of 
the  school  building.  In  1872  the  income  from  the  fund  was 
$855.     It  was  never  greater  in  any  year,  before  or  since. 

The  enlargement  of  the  school  building,  completed  soon 
afterwards,  used  up  all  the  personal  property  except  the  Hart- 
ford Bank  stock,  and  in  1882  the  income  was  but  $240  (the 
dividends  on  that).  It  rose  slightly  the  next  year,  in  conse- 
quence of  an  effort  by  the  trustees  to  secure  subscriptions  to  an 
endowment  fund,  which  brought  in  $2,900.  The  tuition  fee 
at  this  time,  which  had  been  $50  since  1867,  was  raised  to  $80, 
and  later  to  its  present  figure,  $100. 

Since  then,  the  Pratt  Field  has  been  secured  by  a  single  gift 
of  over  $6,100,  and  several  smaller  funds  have  been  constituted 
for  special  purposes. 

In  the  early  history  of  the  School  then,  it  was  largely  sup- 
ported by  rents  and  sales  of  lands,  given  for  the  purjDose  by  the 
Colony  or  town.  That  source  of  supply  has  been  stopped  for- 
ever. It  must  depend  now  on  the  income  from  its  endowment 
and  from  tuition  fees.  The  endowment  ought  to  be  increased. 
The  School  is  doing  a  large  business  on  a  small  working  capital. 
That  is  a  course  of  policy  venturesome  in  a  business  enter[Drise, 
undesirable  for  a  charitable  foundation. 

From  1660  to  1882,  aside  from  public  grants  by  Colony  and 
town,  nothing  was  ever  given  by  anyone  to  increase  the  funds 
of  the  foundation,  and  to  this  hour  no  legacy  has  ever  been  left 
to  it  since  that  of  Edward  Hopkins.  Who  will  be  the  first  of 
those  who  think  kindly  of  the  ancient  School,  to  make  a  will  in 
which  it  shall  be  remembered  ? 

The  total  amount  actually  realized,  first  and  last,  under 
Governor  Hopkins'  will,  for  charitable  uses  in  ISFew  England 
was  £2,470. 


EARLY    GEAMMAK    SCHOOLS    OF    ]?fEW    EI'TGLAND  55 

Of  this  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  of  JSTew  Haven  received 
£412,  the  Hartford  Grammar  School  £400,  the  Hadlev  Gram- 
mar School  £308,  and  Hansard  College  £1,370. 

The  Hartford  allotment  included  a  farm  estimated  at  £270. 
Of  the  balance,  £90  was  invested  in  land  and  £40  went  toward 
building  a  schoolhouse.^*^  The  tovra  had  previously  received 
two  testamentary  gifts  for  a  ''Latin"  or  grammar  school.  With 
the  i^roceeds  of  these  the  Hopkins  funds  were  merged  in  the 
hands  of  trustees  appointed  by  the  to^vn  and,  with  the  aid  of 
public  grants  from  time  to  time,  some  kind  of  a  school  was 
maintained  until  1798.^'''  They  then  obtained  a  charter  of 
incoriDoration  as  ''The  Trustees  of  the  Grammar  School  in  the 
Town  of  Hartford,"  and  this,  some  fifty  years  later,  was  practi- 
cally absorbed  by  the  Hartford  High  School,  a  certain  part  of 
the  income  from  the  funds  of  the  trustees  being  used  to  pay  for 
classical  instniction  given  there,  and  the  balance  added  to  the 
capital.ss     i^  2890,  this  amounted  to  $44,000. 

In  Hadley,  part  of  their  £300  was  soon  used  up  in  paying  the 
current  expenses  of  the  toT\m  school,  and  most  of  the  rest  was 
invested  in  a  mill,  which  proved  unprofitable,  and  was  finally 
burned  up  in  1677.  The  greater  part  of  the  fund  thus  disap- 
peared in  the  seventeenth  century.  Several  testamentary  gifts 
and  public  grants  came  in,  however,  from  time  to  time,  to 
replace  these  losses,  and  in  1816  the  trustees,  then  known  as 
"the  Committee  of  the  Hadley  Donation  School,"  became  incor- 
porated by  the  name  of  "The  Hopkins  Academy."  This  cor- 
poration received  from  the  State,  in  1817,  a  grant  of  half  a 
township  in  Maine.  A  good  academy  building  was  erected, 
and  a  large  number  of  students  received  a  classical  education 
there.  Many  of  them  came  from  out  of  the  town.  The  right 
to  receive  such  scholars  was  finally  challenged  by  a  suit  which 
came  before  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  ]\rassachusetts,  but 
the  decision  was  in  favor  of  the  course  pursued  by  the  trustees, 

'°  Publications  of  the  Colonial  Soc.  of  Mass.,  1,  389. 
«•  Conn.  Historical  Soc.  Coll.,  VI,  144. 

^  Steiner,  Hist,  of  Education  in  Conn.,  27,  oO;    Private  Laws  of  Conn.,  I, 
1060. 


56  THE    HOPKINS    GRAM:\rAR    SCHOOL    OF    ^"EW    HAVET^ 

and  that  the  foundation  was  not  necessarily  for  the  sole  benefit 
of  residents  of  Hadlej.^^ 

In  1860  the  same  fate  befell  the  academy  building  which 
came  to  the  mill  two  centuries  before.  It  was  burned  down, 
and  there  was  no  insurance.  Three  years  later  the  academy 
was  substantially  merged  in  the  tovni  high  school.  Its  funds, 
by  1889,  had  risen  in  amount  to  $5Y,325.^« 

Of  the  £100  first  given  to  Harvard,  nothing  remains.  The 
£1,250,  of  which  the  benefit  came  to  her,  and  to  the  town  of 
Cambridge,  was  well  invested  in  lands  in  Massachusetts,  as 
required  by  the  decree,  and  Harvard's  share  became  one  of  its 
important  funds.^^  A  classical  school  was  set  up  at  Cambridge, 
and  in  1839  its  trustees  were  incorporated  as  the  Hopkins 
Classical  School.  From  1840  to  1854  such  a  school  was  main- 
tained, but  was  then  merged  with  the  city  high  school.  At  that 
time  the  fund  yielded  an  annual  income  of  about  $720.^^ 

Of  the  four  schools  then  which  sliared  in  the  Hopkins 
bequest,  at  ISTew  Haven,  Hartford,  Hadley,  and  Cambridge,  but 
one  survives.  Each  of  the  other  three  has  become  substantially 
merged  in  a  local  high  school.  There  was  in  the  original  con- 
stitution of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  of  'New  Haven  an 
element  of  permanence  peculiar  to  itself.  It  was  found  in  the 
solemn  and  stately  instrument  in  which  John  Davenport 
declared  for  all  time  the  character  and  purpose  of  the  founda- 
tion. 

It  was,  he  hoped,  to  be  a  college.  It  must,  at  least,  be  a 
grammar  school. 

In  the  lapse  of  centuries,  that  terai  in  the  United  States  has 
been  degraded.     It  is  now  commonly  used  to  signify  a  public 

^^  Hadley  vs.  Hopkins  Academy,  14  Pickering's  Reports,  240. 

^Tlie  Hopkins  Fund,  Grammar  School  and  Academy,  Hadley,  30,  39; 
American  Bibl.  Repository,  Jan.,  1842,  175. 

»^  Quincy,  Hist,  of  Harvard  Univ.,  I,  20.5,  507. 

'-  Hildredth,  A  Brief  Account  of  the  Funds  that  came  from  the  Estate  of 
Edward  Hopkins,  Cambridge,  1886;  Bowditch,  An  Account  of  the  Trust 
administered  by  the  Trustees  of  the  Charity  of  Edward  Hopkins,  Pri- 
vately printed  1889:  Barnard,  Am.  Journal  of  Education,  IV,  655;  Dexter, 
Hist,  of  Education  in  the  U.  S.,  32. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND 


57 


school  in  Avhicli  children  receive  the  rudiments  of  education, 
and  where  thej  may  be  prepared  for  a  high  school,  which  in 
turn  may  give  a  preparation  for  the  college.  "Grammar," 
during  most  of  the  history  of  the  world,  has  had  a  broader 
meaning.  It  has  denoted  the  science  of  langTiage, — the  begin- 
nings, at  least,  of  comparative  philology.  It  has  always  been 
the  study  of  the  trustees  of  this  foundation,  since  they  found  it 
impossible  to  institute  a  college,  to  maintain  a  school  of  gram- 
mar in  the  ancient  sense,  a  classical  school — a  fitting  school  for 
college. 

It  was,  next,  the  intention  of  John  Davenport  that  it  should 
be  a  school  for  boys  alone.  It  was  to  bring  up  "hopefull  youths 
in  the  Languages  and  other  good  Literature,  for  the  publique 
use  and  service  of  the  Country."  For  the  "well  performing  of 
the  trust"  under  his  deed  of  gift  of  1660,  he  specified  his  desire 
"that  parents  will  keep  such  of  their  sonnes  constantly  to  learn- 
ing in  the  schools,  whom  they  intend  to  train  vp  for  publick 
serviceableness,  &  that  all  their  sonnes  may  learn  at  the  least  to 
write  and  cast  vp  accounts  -competently,  &  may  make  some 
entrance  into  y^  Lattine  tongue."  In  those  days,  indeed,  no 
one  would  have  dreamed  of  establishing  a  school  to  fit  girls  for 
the  public  service  of  Church  or  State. 

Following  this  line  of  conduct,  the  trustees,  in  drawing  up 
the  additional  statutes  of  the  School,  "made,  agreed  upon,  and 
published  in  y®  s*^  Schoole  in  y®  yeare  1684,"  provided  that  "all 
Girles  be  Excluded,  as  Improper  and  inconsistent  w*^  such  a 
Grammar  Schoole  as  y''  law  informes,  &  is  y®  Designe  of  this 
Settlem*." 

If  the  foundation  proved  insufficient  to  constitute  a  college, 
it  must  at  least  be  used  for  a  "Collegiate  School"  where  instruc- 
tion should  be  given  in  the  "three  learned  Languages,  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew,  so  far  as  shall  be  necessary  to  prepare  and 
fit  youth  for  the  college."  There  was  no  plan  for  such  a 
"people's  college"  as  the  modem  high  school  has  been  sometimes 
termed.  What  Davenport  had  in  view  was  the  promotion  of 
education  in  college.  He  would  have  a  college  at  ISTew  Haven 
if  he  could,  but  if  that  were  not  to  be,  then  a  fitting  school,  pre- 
paratory to  college. 


58  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN" 

Precisely  such  a  school  has  been  maintained  here  during  these 
centuries.  It  leaves  the  higher  education  to  be  given  where  it 
is  best  given,  by  college  or  university.  It  does  not  seek  to  divert 
the  mind  from  the  essentials  to  the  frills  of  education.  Its  aim 
is  to  give  solid  ground  on  which  to  build  in  future  years ;  not 
to  anticipate  what  can  then  be  better  taught  under  different 
conditions. 

In  one  thing,  the  trustees  have  gone  beyond  the  directions 
prescribed  by  Davenport.  He  was  thinking  only  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  advancement  of  the  boys  who  were  to  come 
under  their  charge. 

They  have  always  been  careful  to  provide  facilities  for  health- 
ful play.  Around  the  original  schoolhouse  spread  the  broad 
plain  of  the  "marketplace"  or  Green,  their  playground  for  a 
hundred  years,  and  later  the  playground  of  the  students  at  Yale 
until  1858,  when  the  increasing  population  of  the  city  made  it 
necessary  to  stop  its  use  for  such  a.  purpose.  The  brick  school- 
house  on  Church  street  occupied,  as  does  the  present  one  on 
High  street,  a  corner  of  an  ample  lot.  So  in  the  rear  of  the 
Crown  street  schoolhouse  was  a  spacious  playground. 

In  addition  to  these  opportunities  for  exercise  and  sport, 
since  1896,  by  the  generosity  of  one  of  its  younger  Alumni,  the 
large  "Pratt  Field,"  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  has  become  the 
property  of  the  School,  and  with  its  training  house  gives  every 
facility  needed  for  athletic  games. 

These  three  things,  then,  education  for  boys  only ;  education 
in  fundamentals  only;  play  going  on  with  work;  these  have 
been,  and  I  hope  always  will  be,  among  the  distinctive  charac- 
teristics of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School. 

The  will  of  Governor  Hopkins,  under  which  it  was  set  up, 
was  made  in  London  in  the  distant  day  when  Oliver  Cromwell 
was  lord  protector  of  the  commonwealth.  There  has  been 
time  since  then  for  the  development  of  school  traditions ;  and 
we  to  whom,  through  a  long  succession,  has  come  the  adminis- 
tration of  this  trust,  are  not  insensible  to  what  they  mean. 

The  Rev.  ITicholas  Street,  a  trustee  under  the  original  deed 
of  trust  of  June,  1G60,  as  well  as  under  the  second  one  of  1668, 


EARLY    GRAMMAK    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    EiSTGLAJSTD  59 

served  on  the  board  with  Governor  Jones.  Jones  served  with 
Joseph  Moss;  Moss  with  Isaac  Dickerman;  Dickerman  with 
Samuel  Bishop;  Bishop  with  Dr.  Aeneas  Monson;  Monson 
with  Professor  Kingsley;  and  Kingsley  with  President 
Woolsey,  who  was  on  the  board  when  I  received  mj  appoint- 
ment to  it.  In  a  line  of  unbroken  continuity  the  seven  trustees 
thus  have  perpetuated  themselves  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, in  the  manner  prescribed  by  John  Davenport,  six  lives 
only  intervening  between  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Street  in  1660 
and  my  own  in  1869. 

In  1859,  the  New  Haven  High  School  was  organized  and  six 
years  later,  when  the  late  President  Daniel  C.  Oilman  was  a 
member  of  the  ISTew  Haven  Board  of  Education,  he  procured 
the  appointment  of  a  committee  of  that  board  to  consider  the 
possibility  of  some  scheme  of  union  with  the  Grammar  School. 
A  similar  committee  was  appointed  by  the  trustees,  but  after 
full  consideration  the  project  was  deemed  impracticable. 

In  188Y  similar  committees  were  appointed,  with  a  like 
result. 

The  trustees  have  felt,  that  under  the  statutes  of  the  founda- 
tion and  the  will  in  execution  of  which  they  were  framed,  they 
were  not  at  liberty  to  surrender  their  control  of  the  nature  and 
character  of  the  instruction  given.  Different  rules  were  pre- 
scribed to  govern  the  schools  at  Hartford,  Hadley  and  Cam- 
bridge from  those  provided  for  us  by  John  Davenport. 

It  would  indeed  be  a  sad  day  in  the  history  of  American 
education  if  this  ancient  School  were  ever  to  disappear.  It  is 
one  of  the  four  oldest  institutions  of  learning  in  the  United 
States.  The  Boston  Latin  School  was  founded  in  1635,  Har- 
vard College  in  1636,  and  the  Eoxbury  Latin  School  in  1645. 
ISText  after  these,  and  first  of  all  outside  of  Massachusetts,  comes 
the  Hoj^kins  Grammar  School  of  jSTew  Haven. 

The  half  century  that  has  passed  since  our  Bicentennial  has 
been  one  of  advancing  prosperity.  Our  schoolhouse  accommo- 
dations have  been  more  than  doubled ;  the  Pratt  Field  has  been 
secured;  and  the  classes  and  the  staff  of  instructors  have  both 
been  larger  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  School. 


60 


THE    HOPKIISrS    GKAMMAK    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN" 


It  has  shown  itself  able  to  live  and  thrive  and  grow  in  the 
face  of  a  city  high  school  free  to  every  inhabitant,  and  open  to 
those  not  belonging  here,  at  a  charge  less  than  that  the  trustees 
are  forced  to  make.  And  why?  I  should  say  mainly  on 
account  of  these  nine  things : " 

1.  It  is  purely  a  boys'  school. 

2.  It  is  purely  a  preparatory  school, — preparatory  for 
college  or  university. 

3.  It  is  mainly  a  preparatory  school  for  Yale  College  and 
the  Sheffield  Scientific  School ;  and  it  is  so  near  to  them  as  to 
be  permeated  by  their  spirit  and  almost  identified  with  their 
existence. 

4.  It  prepares  for  itself  through  its  junior  department. 
Here  boys  of  ten  are  taken,  and  given  the  right  start  toward  a 
liberal  education,  under  the  Hector's  eye. 

5.  It  stands  for  religion  and  the  worship  of  God. 

One  of  the  rules  adopted  by  the  trustees  in  1684  was  "that, 
the  scholars  being  called  together,  the  Master  shall,  every  morn- 
ing, begin  his  work  w*^  a  short  Prayer  for  a  blessing  on  his 
labours  &  theire  Learning."  ^^ 

It  is  believed  that  this  practice  has  been  steadily  maintained 
ever  since. 

6.  It  provides  for  play  as  well  as  work. 

7.  It  receives  boys  from  any  part  of  the  countiy,  or  the 
world,  and  can  house  them  in  a  pleasant  dormitory,  under  a 
master's  care.  This  frees  it  from  a  local  or  provincial  character. 
A  few  years  ago,  a  well-known  Englishman,  who  had  sent,  at 
large  expense,  an  educational  commission  of  his  countrymen  to 
inspect  the  American  system  of  education,  and  determined  to 
send  his  own  sons  to  Yale,  put  them  first,  to  finish  their  prepa- 
ration, at  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School.  This  year's  cata- 
logue   shows    students    from    Massachusetts,    Missouri,    l^ew 

'  Jersey,  iS'ew  York,  Tennessee,  Vermont,  and  Central  America. 

8.  Its  students  come  mainly  from  pleasant  homes,  and 
belong  to  households  of  cultivated  people.  Bringing  with  them 
similar  ideals  and  tastes,  and  ways  of  speech,  their  school  life 

»^MSS.  School  Records,  I,  18. 


EAKLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  '     61 

naturally  leads  to  the  growth  of  friendships;  and  friendships 
formed  at  school  are  always  of  the  strongest. 

9.  It  feels  the  uplift  of  its  historical  connection  with  for- 
mer generations,  and  is  dignified  and  ennobled  by  its  own 
traditions. 

These  things,  with  but  one  exception,  inhere  in  the  very 
being  of  the  School.  They  are  permanent  in  character.  They 
exist  in  combination  nowhere  else  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
impossible  that  all  of  them  should  exist  anywhere  else. 

We  who  gather  here  to-day,  the  Alumni  of  this  venerable 
institution  and  those  who  are  still  among  its  scholars,  heirs  of 
this  gift  of  a  distant  age,  have  something  in  our  charge.  It 
belongs  to  us  to  stand  here  for  the  inherited  ideals  of  those  old 
days  of  Cromwell  and  the  Puritans, — their  best  ideals  in 
education  and  in  life. 

In  his  last  years  Goethe  wrote  to  an  old  friend,  that  to  live 
long  means  to  survive  ourselves.  We  pass  out  of  our  youth ; 
out  of  our  middle  age;  away  from  hopes  that  once  fired  our 
endeavor, — from  lines  of  thought  and  action  that  once  seemed 
inseparable  from  our  existence.^'* 

It  is  not  so  with  institutions.  If  they  endure,  they  assimi- 
late more  than  they  can  lose.  Particularly  is  this  true  of  an 
institution  of  learning,  and  of  learning  for  the  young.  The 
principle  of  its  being  can  never  change.  Methods  of  education 
will  change,  but  the  necessities  of  education  will  never  change. 

It  has  become  a  necessity  for  women,  as  well  as  men.  There 
are  and  ought  to  be  classical  schools  for  girls,  and  women's 
colleges. 

The  Hopkins  Grammar  School  of  ISTew  Haven  is  not  such  a 
school.     Yale  College  is  not  such  a  college. 

Here  is  one  point  in  which  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  of 
New  Haven  differs  radically  from  the  high  schools  into  which 
the  other  Hopkins  schools  have  gradually  been  absorbed. 

Coeducation  in  college  does  not  thrive  in  iN'ew  England. 
The  reasons  that  militate  against  it  afltect,  in  like  fashion,  our 
schools  that  prepare  for  college.      

"^  Bielscliowsky,  Goethe,  Sein  Leben  und  seine  Werke,  II,  407. 


62  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

The  School  whose  long  history  we  are  here  to  look  back  upon 
is  a  school,  as  ever,  for  boys  only ;  with  a  schoolhoiise,  as  ever, 
surrounded  by  a  spacious  playground ;  offering,  as  ever,  an 
education  preparatory  to  college  and  university,  and  not  seek- 
ing itself  to  teach  what  they  can  better  teach. 

It  was  founded  in  a  day  of  rapid  change.  The  currents  of 
modern  thought  had  begun  to  swell.  Englishmen  at  home  and 
Englishmen  here  were  governing  themselves  without  a  King. 

But  this  was  not  to  last. 

The  Colony  of  l^ew  Haven  was  nearing  its  end.  The  Con- 
federation of  the  United  Colonies  of  l^ew  England  was  to  be 
dissolved.  The  Commonwealth  of  Cromwell  soon  passed  away. 
The  Stuarts  regained  their  throne.  Another  revolution  swept 
them  off.  The  Hanoverians  came  in.  The  American  Revolu- 
tion parted  the  English  people  on  one  side  of  the  sea  from  the 
English  j^eople  on  the  other.  A  new  power  arose  up  on  this 
continent  to  control  it — the  United  States.  But  through  all 
these  changes  the  principles  of  sound  education  remained 
unchanged,  and  here  in  this  ancient  School  they  have  been 
steadily  maintained. 

The  Romans,  before  proceeding  to  any  solemn  act,  were 
accustomed  to  utter  the  brief  prayer:  "QUOD  BOl^VM 
EAVSTVM  FELIX  FORTVXATVM  QVE  ESSET." 

So  did  John  Davenport  preface  his  deed  of  gift,  for  estab- 
lishing this  "Latin"  School,  with  the  expression  of  the  pious 
hope  "QVOD  FELIX  FAVSTVMQVE  SIT." 

As  we  look  back  over  this  long  stretch  of  years,  the  seven- 
teenth centuiy,  the  eighteenth,  the  nineteenth,  the  twentieth,  all 
belonging  to  our  school  history,  we  can  not  only  echo  his  words 
for  the  centuries  to  come ;  but  for  the  past  (and  for  that  we 
are  competent  to  speak)  we  may  declare  of  the  institution  whose 
policy  he  shaped,  a  quarter  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  that  it  has 
been  happy,  it  has  been  fortunate. 


EARLY    GRAMMAR    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  63 

1660-1910 

IN   MEMORY    OF   HAWLEY    OLMSTEAD, 

Rector  of  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut; 
delivered  at  a  banquet  on  the  250th  anniversary  of  that  institution,  by  the 
Rev.  Edward  Octavus  Flagg,  D.D.,  LL.D.   (H.  G.  S.  1840). 


New  Haven,  city  beautiful  thou  wast  and  art, 
With  classic  shade  from  thy  commingling  elms 

O'erhanging  moonlit  walks  and  secrets  of  the  heart; 
For  thought's  direction,  too,  hast  many  helms. 

I  come  to  speak  of  life-tide's  earlier  flow, 

Of  that  which  caused  most  sluggish  powers  to  grow. 

I  sing  of  one  within  the  academic  past 

By  nature  formed  through  learning's  maze  to  steer, 
Who  from  New  England's  Helicon  drank  knowledge  vast, 

His  ruddy  health  a  product  of  its  cheer. 
Upon  his  brow  was  stamped  a  former  Yale; 
In  rank  Phi  Beta  Kappa  told  the  tale. 

As  Jvmo  walked  a  queen,  walked  he  as  well  a  king, 
A  living  head  transfused  throughout  a  school. 

Rebellion's  voice  against  his  reign  no  charge  durst  bring, 
Its  sceptre  was  the  justice  of  its  rule. 

His  discipline  capacity  obeyed, 

Evading  which  attempt  was  seldom  made. 

His  grave  demeanor  that  effrontery  would  repel 

Produced  impression  of  a  nature  cold; 
But  as  a  kernel  choice  is  hid  within  a  shell. 

His  outer  ne'er  his  inner  being  told. 
The  inner  was  alive  to  public  weal; 
The  outer  not  the  less  alive  to  heal. 

No  superficial  recitation  'scaped  his  mind. 

That  sifted  Greek  and  Latin  to  the  core. 
As  reapers  oft  refuse  defective  sheaves  to  bind. 

So  he  what  inattention's  tokens  bore. 
Should  one  the  smallest  particle  omit, 
Uneasy  would  his  pedagogy'  sit. 

As  thorough  in  attire  as  he  was  in  mind. 
His  vesture  grave  was  chosen  from  the  best. 

No  better  model  could  a  pupil  ever  find 
To  be  not  foppishly  but  neatly  dressed. 

Despising  every  empty-headed  dude. 

To  flashiness  preferred  a  habit  crude. 


64  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

A  pupil  who  a  perfume  rank  did  once  dispense 

Emitted  from  a  handkerchief  well  iisedj 
Quite  overcame  his  keen  and  analytic  sense 

Whose  patience  was  in  this  way  oft  ahused. 
Amid  malodorous  fumes  while  quite  distressed 
He  said,  Of  perfumes,  cleanliness  was  best. 

If  clean  without,  he  also  was  as  clean  within. 

Upon  the  Rock  of  Ages  planted  hope, 
A  childlike  faith  made  him  an  enemy  to  sin. 

With  that  of  Icnowledge  he  religion's  door  would  ope. 
As  sunlight  rouses  from  his  sleep  the  day. 
The  Word  divine  waked  study  with  its  ray. 

One  only  pattern  his  religion  seemed  to  take, 
'Twas  He,  Who  did  that  Normal  College  start, 

Whence  went  forth  teachers  over  land  and  sea  to  break 
Intelligence  of  every  truth  a  part; 

'Twas  He  Who  taught  as  never  man  could  teach — 

An  orb  at  which  to  aim  but  never  reach. 

A  coronet  of  honor  shone  upon  his  brow. 

An  impress  of  his  reverence  for  law. 
As  genuine  was  his  promise  as  a  sacred  vow. 

Before  him  perfidy  would  change  to  awe. 
Nobility  of  loftiest  classic  thought 
Was  in  the  fibre  of  his  being  wrovight. 

Below  the  standard  did  a  student  ever  fall. 
No  compromise  with  interest  did  he  make. 

But  of  such  lapse  to  parents  he  reported  all, 
If  from  a  future  patronage  'twould  take ; 

While  if  defects  the  student  might  retrieve 

Tliis  too  was  sent  that  they  no  more  should  grieve. 

'Twas  love  with  him  made  education  soar  so  high. 

It  lubricated  each  tuition  joint, 
A  garden  seemed  to  him  his  school  'neath  duty's  sky 

Where  he  by  name  to  every  fiower  could  point. 
Each  human  bud  received  paternal  care, 
Each  ripening  bloom  he  strove  to  make  more  fair. 

How  charmingly  the  school  comes  back  again  to-day. 

Its  busy  hum  is  music  to  mine  ear. 
What  seemed  like  work  within  the  past  now  seems  but  play 

As  signals  of  departing  time  draw  near. 
As  Winter  drear  reverts  to  Summer's  fairy  joy,     • 
Does  age  look  back  to  school  days  when  a  boy. 


EARLY    GEAMMAK    SCHOOLS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND  65 

Tlie  art  dramatic  he  considered  as  the  black. 

And  o'er  the  coals  raked  thespians  "neatli  his  care. 

Because  of  sober  duty  there  had  been  a  lack, 
The  buskin  of  the  amateur  to  wear. 

His  modesty  especially  was  shamed 

That  for  a  woman's  part  had  one  been  named. 

Tliough  for  the  arts  he  seemed  not  very  much  to  care, 

Preferring  in  declaimers  prose  to  verse, 
He  wished  in  elocution  singing  have  a  share 

That  in  Apollo's  line  should  boys  rehearse. 
The  voice  thus  made  the  servant  of  the  will, 
'Twere  easier  the  laboring  chest  to  fill. 

I  see  him  now,  as  seated  on  instruction's  throne 

With  green  protection  to  his  Argus  eye, 
No  other  verdure  could  be  found  within  his  zone 

Most  penetrating  searchlight  could  descry; 
I  hear  again  the  clearing  of  his  throat, 
A  cracking  of  the  whip  before  it  smote. 

I  see  him  walking  to  and  fro  with  book  in  hand. 

Like  Aristotle  who  thus  always  taught. 
When  exercise  his  organism  might  demand, 

Or  closer  to  discover  minds  distraught, 
In  one  direction  never  so  immersed 
As  not  to  hear  when  laggard  tones  rehearsed. 

An  object  lesson  he  to  check  a  surface  mode 

Where  teachers  often  trifle  with  their  solemn  charge. 

When  thoroughness  the  loftiest  powers  cease  to  goad, 
The  faculties  refusing  to  enlarge. 

Beware  of  him  of  one  book,  said  the  Greek, 

Of  no  book  mastered,  ah,  how  sad  to  speak! 

Our  nation  now  has  reached  a  giddy,  dazzling  height, 

A  height  no  nation  e'er  has  reached  before. 
Like  doves  unto  their  windows  from  the  gloom  of  night 

Rush  crowds  upon  our  hospitable  shore. 
And  welcomes  are  extended  by  our  state 
To  those  our  heritage  might  make  more  great. 

In  education's  mould  nuist   an   uiiwichh-  mass 

Be  formed  to  further  build  our  free  domain. 
Must  evolution's  march,  its  Rubicon  to  pass, 

In  all  directions  sow  the  mental  grain. 
A  soil  of  independent  lords  are  we 
And  school  and  college  give  us  liberty. 


66  THE    HOPKINS    GRAMMAR    SCHOOL    OF    NEW    HAVEN 

The  true  nobility  of  this  republic  grand 

Are  they  who  draw  forth  mental  powers  the  best, 

Who  banish  fraud's  control  from  out  our  favored  land, 
Enthroning  reason's  sway  by  angels  blest. 

May  he  who  in  the  past  upreared  such  rule 

A  beacon  prove  to  guides  of  our  loved  school. 

Thus  well  it  were  we  memorize  such  souls 

As  those  of  Olmstead  and  of  Lovell  too ; 
Of  men  for  whom  the  bell  of  mourning  ever  tolls 

To  private  and  to  public  school  .so  true. 
Within  the  hall  of  fame  should  they  be  writ 
Among  those  honored  thus  are  none  more  fit. 

'Tis  said  of  Pericles  before  he  made  a  speech. 
He  prayed  therein  a  purport  true  be  given, 

And  so  before  they  leave  their  homes  should  they  who  teach 
For  such  a  boon  as  this  appeal  to  heaven. 

Instruction's  aim  will  better  reach  the  goal. 

Each  effort  winged  by  the  immortal  soul. 

Replete  with  many  lessons  is  this  life  of  ours. 

Its  monitory  trials  teachers  all 
To  bring  forth  from  obscurity  the  hidden  powers. 

Releasing  them  from  sin's  tyrannic  thrall. 
May  lore  celestial  in  each  breast  be  sown 
That  we  may  know  as  also  we  are  known. 


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